In 2025, exports by Korea's middle market companies rose 1.8% from a year earlier, marking a second straight year of gains. Exports to ASEAN and the Middle East expanded, and manufacturing led the upward trend.
According to the "2025 middle market company export trends" that the Federation of Middle Market Enterprises of Korea (FOMEK) released on the 27th, total exports by middle market companies in 2025 came to $123.53 billion (about 177.0431 trillion won). That was up 1.8% from $121.34 billion in 2024 and was the highest annual result since statistics began in 2022. The number of exporting middle market companies was 2,359, up 60 from the previous year.
Of Korea's total exports of $709.407 billion (about 1,016.8639 trillion won), middle market companies accounted for 17.4%.
By industry, total exports by manufacturing middle market companies rose 2.5% to $108.68 billion from a year earlier, while nonmanufacturing fell 3% to $14.85 billion.
In manufacturing, sectors such as electrical equipment ($8.08 billion, up 24%), medical and pharmaceuticals ($2.17 billion, up 13.3%), and primary metals ($7.82 billion, up 12.2%) increased, while rubber and plastics ($3.59 billion, down 36.8%) and fabricated metal products ($2.02 billion, down 12.3%) decreased.
In nonmanufacturing, wholesale and retail trade ($11.96 billion, up 4.6%) increased, while scientific and technological services ($510 million, down 70.8%) decreased.
By item, ships ($2.63 billion, up 36.4%) and fine chemicals ($10.68 billion, up 24.5%) grew sharply, and key export items such as semiconductors ($27.24 billion, up 8.6%) and displays ($710 million, up 6.5%) also recorded gains.
By region, increases were notable in the Middle East ($3.77 billion, up 19.6%) and ASEAN ($28.66 billion, up 19.2%), while there were declines in some regions such as the CIS ($1.9 billion, down 15.8%), China ($24.63 billion, down 13.1%), and the United States ($18.53 billion, down 11.1%).
Park Yang-gyun, head of policy at the federation, said, "Even as internal and external instability persisted last year, middle market companies achieved record-high export performance," and added, "We will communicate closely with the government and the National Assembly to create effective legal, institutional, and policy environments to expand exports."