SEOUL: Exports of South Korean beauty products to Southeast Asian countries soared 31.6 percent last year, amid surging demand for skin care and makeup items, a report showed Wednesday. The outbound shipments of Korean cosmetics products to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reached US$406 million in 2016, compared with $308 million tallied the previous year, according to the report by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA).
Among the total, 76 percent were skin care products, roughly three times larger than the shipments of color cosmetics line, which stood at 24 percent, the report said. Facial care products accounted for 80 percent of the total exported skin care items. Thailand was the biggest importer of Korean beauty products, accounting for 29.3 percent of all outbound shipments last year, followed by Singapore at 23.2 percent and Vietnam at 17.4 percent, according to a separate report from the Korea International Trade Association (KITA). South Korea’s shares in the ASEAN market accounted for 4.5 percent of the total, putting the country as the sixth-biggest exporter of cosmetics to the region as of 2015, the KITA report said. The size of ASEAN’s cosmetics market was estimated at $7.3 billion last year, up 8.8 percent from a year earlier. Experts expect the market to post an average 10 percent annual growth by 2020.
