SEOUL, May 31 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's trade of computers and related goods soared nearly 40 percent to reach a new all-time high in the first four months of the year amid the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday.

The country's exports and imports of computers and peripherals stood at US$13.3 billion in the January-April period, up 40.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service.

Computers and peripherals include desktops, notebooks, tablets, solid state drives (SSD), memory cards, monitors and printers.

The customs office attributed the surge to increased non-in-person activities in the wake of the prolonged COVID-19 crisis.

The sharp increase came after South Korea's trade of computers and peripherals jumped 26.6 percent on-year to a fresh high of $31.9 billion in 2021.

In the first four months, exports spiked 65.7 percent to $7 billion, and imports climbed 19.7 percent to $6.3 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $700 million in the sector, the biggest for the four-month period.

Last year, South Korea's trade surplus in the sector reached $1.1 billion after switching to an $800 million surplus in 2020 following a red ink of $1.5 billion a year earlier.

Exports of SSDs and other storing devices reached $5.7 billion, accounting for 81 percent of the total overseas shipments, with imports of notebooks and tablets coming to $2.1 billion, or 33.2 percent of the total imports.

The United States was the largest export destination with $2.1 billion, followed by China with $1.8 billion and Hong Kong with $800 million. Imports from China were the largest at $4.1 billion, or 64.1 percent of the total, according to the data.

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