South Korea's current account swung back to the black in December from the previous month, but the amount was quite smaller than a year before as exports dwindled amid growing global recession woes, central bank data showed Wednesday.

The country's current account surplus came to $2.68 billion in December, compared with a shortfall of $220 million a month earlier, according to the preliminary data by the Bank of Korea. The current account is the broadest measure of cross-border trade.

The December figure still represented a marked decline from a surplus of $6.37 billion tallied in the same month a year earlier.

For the whole of 2022, the surplus reached $29.83 billion, which was sharply smaller than an annual surplus of $85.23 billion a year earlier. The amount beat the BOK's surplus forecast of $25 billion. (Yonhap)