Payments for imported services decrease for fifth consecutive month in Jan.: BOK

South Korea's payments for imported services have decreased for five consecutive months... mainly due to a fall in travel spending.
According to the Bank of Korea, the nation's payments for foreign services were around 11-point-8 billion U.S. dollars in January... down 4-percent from a year earlier.
The amount has been decreasing on-year since September 2018.
The central bank attributed the downward trend to the fall in payments for travel and transportation services.
For instance, people paid less when traveling abroad... because of an increase in the number of low-cost airlines.
This trend is generally a good sign for the local economy... as lower service payments will lead to a smaller services account deficit.