South Korea’s exports of semiconductors have reached a new annual high, exceeding $60 billion for the first time, the government said Thursday.

“Outbound shipments of semiconductors reached over $60 billion as of today, making them the only item worth more than $60 billion in annual exports,” the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release.

The ministry said the annual total this year was estimated at $61.5 billion, which would mark a 7.6 percent on-year increase from $57.1 billion in 2013. This year’s figure would represent well over 10 percent of the country’s overall exports of $570 billion for 2014.

The rise in exports of semiconductors was largely attributed to growing demand from the launch of new information technology products, such as smartphones, along with a recent increase in global prices.

According to the ministry, the average price of a 2-gigabyte dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip came to $2.28 at the end of the third quarter, compared with $1.82 a year earlier. (Yonhap)