SEOUL, Sept. 17– South Korea’s knowledge services deficit widened in the first half amid surging demand for overseas artificial intelligence (AI) software and streaming services, central bank data showed Thursday.
The country posted a deficit of 6.44 billion U.S. dollars in knowledge-intensive services trade during the January-June period, up from a deficit of 5.44 billion dollars in the second half of last year, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
It marked the second-largest half-yearly deficit in the country’s history, trailing only the deficit of 7.0 billion dollars tallied in the second half of 2010.
The widening deficit was fueled by intellectual property royalties, which saw their shortfall expand from 4.00 billion dollars in the second half of 2025 to 4.90 billion dollars in the first half of 2026.
Notably, the computer and mobile software copyright sector, which includes fees for global AI services, registered a record-high deficit of 2.84 billion dollars in the first half, up from 2.31 billion dollars in the previous half.
Trade in multimedia copyrights, which includes subscriptions to global online video streaming platforms, swung from a surplus of 290 million dollars to a deficit of 40 million dollars in the cited period.
Cultural and leisure services provided a buffer, with its surplus advancing to 720 million dollars in the first half from 530 million dollars in the previous half.
Surplus in the information and communication services slightly shrank from 2.87 billion dollars to 2.42 billion dollars, while the deficit in professional business services moderately narrowed from 4.84 billion dollars to 4.67 billion dollars.(Namibia Daily News/Xinhua)
