The denomination matters here. Purchasing-power parity, or PPP, converts currencies according to what money buys in each economy. This figure is therefore not the amount Korean exporters received in market-rate US dollars, and it is not Korea’s trade surplus. Because it is measured at current prices, it can also reflect price changes as well as growth in the quantity of goods and services sold abroad.
There is evidence that this was not merely a price-driven record. The OECD’s companion export volume index, which is designed to remove price effects, increased 8.55% from 118.1 to 128.2 in the same quarter. The current-price measure rose faster, so its 18.9% gain should not be mistaken for an equivalent increase in real exports.
The result nonetheless puts Korea near the top of the comparison: it ranked fifth among 47 economies on this PPP-converted measure. For an export-oriented economy, higher real exports can support production and corporate income by showing stronger demand for Korean output. But gross exports alone do not reveal the contribution to GDP, which depends on exports minus imports, or how much of the export revenue reaches workers and households.