South Korea semiconductor exports to China sink as US tightens tech restrictions

By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-17 04:01:26 | Updated at 2025-03-17 11:48:29 7 hours ago

Chip sales to the world’s second-largest economy including Hong Kong fell 31.8 per cent from a year earlier, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

That was bigger than the 22.5 per cent contraction reported for January and comes after a 2024 rally that helped fuel South Korea’s economic growth.

The Department of Commerce in December slapped fresh curbs on the sale of high-bandwidth memory chips to China, seeking to keep Beijing from advancing in the fields of artificial intelligence and other hi-tech fields.

 Shutterstock

High-bandwidth memory chips are typically bundled with artificial-intelligence processors. Photo: Shutterstock

SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics are two of the world’s biggest memory-chip makers and also operate semiconductor plants in China.

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