The global economic canary sounded an alarm: South Korea's exports were weak at the beginning of the year, and the prospects for global trade recovery were bleak. According to data released by the South Korean government on Monday, in the first 20 days of January this year, South Korea's overall export volume decreased by 1% year-on-year to 33.3 billion US dollars; After adjusting for differences in workdays, South Korea's export volume in the first 20 days of January increased by 2.2% year-on-year. Both of these data are far behind the year-on-year growth of 13% in the same period last month. South Korea's import volume in the first 20 days of January decreased by 18.2% year-on-year to $35.9 billion, further expanding the decrease of 9.2% compared to the same period last month. South Korea experienced a trade deficit of $2.6 billion in the first 20 days of January.