Korean Cultural Exports Still Booming

Korea's exports of so-called cultural contents stood at US$4.3 billion in 2011, up 34.9 percent from the previous year.

Game and cartoon character exports grew dramatically by 48.1 and 42 percent and were worth $2.34 billion and $392.27 million.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Tuesday released the statistics for 11 sectors of the cultural contents industry including publishing, comics, music, games, animation, and film.

Thanks to the Korean Wave, the industry recorded average growth of 22.5 percent a year for the last four years, the ministry said. In 2011, it posted a surplus of $2.45 billion, nearly twice greater than in 2010.