South Korea's exports dropped slightly from a year earlier last month, but its trade surplus widened as imports shrank at a faster rate, the government said Monday.

Outbound shipments came to US$46.99 billion in November, down 1.9 percent from the same month last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

Imports dropped 4 percent on-year to some $41.38 billion. The country posted a trade surplus of about $5.61 billion, compared with a surplus of $4.8 billion in November 2013.

November marked the 34th consecutive month the country has posted a trade surplus.

The drop in exports was largely attributed to a cut in the number of working days.

"Overall exports somewhat shrank due to a cut in the number of working days by one from a year earlier, but the growing trend continued as seen in the rise in the daily average amount of exports," the ministry said in a press release.

The daily average value of exports came to $2.09 billion last month, compared with $2.04 billion in November 2013, it added.

Exports to the United States jumped 20.8 percent on-year last month, but shipments to most other major economies shrank significantly.

Shipments to China, the world's single largest importer of South Korean products, slipped 3.2 percent on-year, marking a turnaround from a 3.5 percent on-year gain in the previous month.

Shipments to European Union countries shrank 6.7 percent, with exports to Japan plunging 24.4 percent.

By product, shipments of semiconductors spiked 16.7 percent on-year to $5.8 billion with exports of steel products also surging 13.3 percent to $3.19 billion.

Outbound shipments of automobiles dropped 5.5 percent to $4.35 billion with shipments of petroleum products, such as gasoline, plunging 21.6 percent to $4.08 billion.

The fall in imports was largely attributed to a drop in energy imports, which fell 6.7 percent on-year to some $12.6 billion in November.

Imports of capital goods and consumer products gained 8.2 percent and 9.4 percent on-year, respectively, in the first 20 days of November, according to the ministry.

The ministry said the country's annual exports were expected to grow 2.8 percent on-year to $575 billion this year with imports growing at the same pace to some $530 billion.

The ministry earlier said the country's overall trade volume breached the $1 trillion mark for the fourth consecutive year as of Friday. (Yonhap)