South Korea's export falls 16.7pc in November

South Korea's export logged a double-digit fall in the first 20 days of this month, leading to a continued trade deficit, customs office data showed Monday.

Export came to 33.16 billion U.S. dollars in the Nov. 1-20 period, down 16.7 percent compared to the same period of last year, according to Korea Customs Service.

The daily average shipment reduced 11.3 percent in the 20-day period. Semiconductor export tumbled 29.4 percent, and those for steel, mobile devices and precision machinery declined in double figures.

Export for cars and oil products advanced by 28.6 percent and 16.1 percent each in the cited period.

Import shrank 5.5 percent from a year earlier to 37.58 billion dollars in the first 20 days of November, but the daily average import added 0.6 percent. Import of the country's three major energy sources, including crude oil, natural gas and coal, stood at 9.86 billion dollars in the Nov. 1-20 period, up 17.1 percent from a year earlier.

Import for semiconductors, oil products and semiconductor equipment dropped in double digits.

Due to the faster slide in export than import, the trade deficit amounted to 4.41 billion dollars in the 20-day period. For the past seven months through October, the trade balance remained in red.

"We're screwed," said Alphonse Fwamba Mutombo, standing on a plot of rubble overlooking an open-cast cobalt mine in Kolwezi, southeastern DR Congo.

His had once been a thriving neighbourhood of neat houses and tree-shaded avenues.

Today his cherished home is surrounded by the wreckage of demolished houses, separated from the sprawling pit by a concrete barrier.

The Chinese-owned mine wants to expand, and many of Mutombo's fellow residents have taken buy-outs.

Mutombo doesn't want to leave. The 70-year-old is clinging on, hoping to secure a better deal.

"We live on top of minerals," Mutombo said. But he had no delusions about what ultimately awaited his neighbourhood: "It will disappear," he told AFP.

Kolwezi, home to more than half a million people, sits atop some of the world's richest mineral reserves-a treasure trove of copper, cobalt and gold that provides the motor for DR Congo's economy. The city is already ringed by a moat of industrial mines, a sandy moonscape of enormous open pits, access roads and pylons.

But mining activity is increasingly edging inside the city itself, uprooting thousands of people who often complain of unfair treatment. Mining permits cover most of Kolwezi's surface area, according to the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining cadastre. Asian markets rose Tuesday as investors brushed off a reverse on Wall Street and focused on signs of slowing inflation and China's moves to shore up its economy.

A largely positive meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping indicated an easing of tensions between the powers and added to the upbeat mood on trading floors.

Still, there remains a lot of trepidation that central bank interest rate hikes aimed at taming inflation will eventually send economies into a recession. And since Thursday's forecast-beating consumer prices data, Federal Reserve officials have warned there were more increases in the pipeline, though they are not expected to be as big as the previous four rises, of 75 basis points.

The latest was vice chair Lael Brainard, who said that while it would probably be right to slow down the rate hikes, "we have additional work to do both on raising rates and sustaining restraint to bring inflation down".

The comments, along with profittaking, helped push Wall Street's three main indexes into the red and pushed the dollar up against its peers, having tumbled last week. Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management said: "With US growth yet to fall off a cliff, make no mistake, inflation is still at the fulcrum of market expectations as board members continue to push back a bit on market pricing."

However, Asian traders were a little more upbeat, cheered by China's move to ease some of its strict Covid19 restrictions and provide muchneeded support to its beleaguered property sector.