Korea‘s petrochemical companies hope to further increase their exports after they climbed to a record high last year, a local industry group said Friday.

The country’s exports of petrochemical products, such as plastic and fertilizers, reached US$45.5 billion in 2011, up 27.5 percent from $35.7 billion worth of products shipped a year earlier, according to the Korea Petrochemical Industry Association.

The association, however, said the growth rate this year will likely slow down significantly to a gain of 4.3 percent to reach $47.5 billion.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy, which promotes the country‘s trade, earlier said the large increase in the country’s exports of petrochemical products last year was due to the collapse of Japanese competitors, whose production facilities were nearly destroyed by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March.

“The petrochemical industry will launch a joint research center to further improve its technology competitiveness while fully utilizing the country‘s free trade agreements to expand its export market,” the association said.

To this end, the industry as a whole plans to invest 7.5 trillion won this year, up from last year’s 7.3 trillion won, for technology development and expansion of production facilities, it added. (Yonhap News)