Concern continues to mount over Korea’s growing trade dependence on China amid the nation’s prolonged export slump, hit by the slowdown of its trading partner’s economic growth, the Finance Ministry reported Tuesday.

In its Recent Economic Trends in November report, the ministry said China’s slowdown was a key “external risk” undermining Korea’s economic growth.

Korea has experienced a continuous slide in export volume all year. It dropped 15.8 percent on-year in October, snowballing from an 8.4 percent drop in September.

The slide last month was attributed to heavy drops to major export destinations including China, the U.S., Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Japan and Latin America.

Private think tanks have continued to caution over the heavy dependence on trade with China.

Trade volume with China accounted for 23.2 percent of South Korea’s total trade for the first nine months of the year, up 1.8 percentage points over the same period last year, according to Statistics Korea.

Korea’s trade with the Asian superpower, its top export destination, came to $168.8 billion during the January-September period, out of 727.6 billion won ($628.9 million) in its overall trade.

China received more than a quarter ― 25.7 percent ― of Korea’s total exports, up from 25 percent last year.

A Bank of Korea report said China’s slowing GDP growth “will especially lead to greater concerns over economic downturns in Asia’s newly emerging market countries that are closely linked to the Chinese economy.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choi Kyun-hwan has said it will not be easy for Korea to reach its 3.1 percent GDP growth target for this year.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)