Jan-Feb South Korea's EPDM Imports Rose YoY
Introduction: South Korea is one of the major export trading countries of EPDM in the world. The export volume of EPDM from January to February 2025 increased slightly. China, India, and Southeast Asia remain the main export destinations, while exports to the U.S. and Europe decreased year-on-year.
According to the data released by the Korea Customs Service, the export volume of EPDM from South Korea in January and February 2025 was 33.8kt, a year-on-year increase of 0.3%. From January to February, the production of the Kumho and LVE units in South Korea remained stable, and the operating rate remained high. South Korea increased its exports, mainly concentrated in China, India, and Southeast Asian countries. The domestic demand in China showed relatively stable performance, and the USD price level of EPDM remained high and upward, which attracted South Korea to increase its export efforts of EPDM to China.
Source: Korea Customs Service
In terms of the export flow direction, the overall flow of goods remained stable from January to February 2025, but the quantities exported to various trading partners changed. Specifically, looking at different trading partners, China still ranked first among South Korea’s export trading partners. From January to February, South Korea exported 12.8kt EPDM to China, a year-on-year increase of 27.44%. India ranked second. The total amount of EPDM exported from South Korea to India was 4kt, a year-on-year increase of 11.37%. The trade volumes with the top two trading partners accounted for 49.83% of South Korea’s total export volume, which is nearly half of the total export volume. It can be seen that China and India are still the main supporting countries for South Korea’s EPDM exports.
In terms of the trade volume with Europe and the U.S., from January to February 2025, the total amount of EPDM exported from South Korea to the U.S. was 2kt, a year-on-year decrease of 27.16%; the quantity of EPDM exported to Germany also decreased by 27.85% year-on-year. As for Southeast Asia, the quantity of EPDM exported from South Korea to Thailand increased by 5.29% year-on-year. Southeast Asia has abundant labor resources and relatively low labor costs. In recent years, some Chinese industries have been transferred to Southeast Asia. However, due to the limited local supply capacity, it is difficult to meet the market demand, thus relying heavily on imports.
Source: Korea Customs Service
From January to February 2025, the domestic demand showed relatively stable performance. Although the downstream industries suspended production and had holidays due to the Spring Festival, the overall demand level was still acceptable. Compared with the demand in other countries and regions, the operating rates of downstream industries in China were relatively high. The production and sales data of Chinese automobiles can reflect certain end-market situations to some extent. From January to February, the production and sales of automobiles reached 4.553 million units and 4.552 million units respectively, with year-on-year growth of 16.2% and 13.1%. The growth rate of automobile output expanded by 14.5 percentage points compared with that in January, and the growth rate of sales expanded by 13.7 percentage points. From January to February, the export volume of automobiles was 911,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 10.9%. The automobile industry, which is the largest downstream industry of EPDM, showed remarkable performance, continuing to provide strong support from the demand side. Therefore, as South Korea is a major exporting country of EPDM, China remains the largest demand market for EPDM. In the later stage, with the commissioning of Kumho’s 70kt/a unit in South Korea, it is expected that EPDM exported to China will further increase.
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