SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's export of information and communications technology (ICT) products kept falling for the ninth consecutive month to July on a weak demand for major export items, such as chip, display panel and mobile phone, a government report showed Wednesday.

The ICT export tumbled 21.8 percent from a year earlier to 14.51 billion U.S. dollars in July, continuing to slide since November last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

Import in the ICT sector amounted to 9.74 billion dollars, sending the trade surplus to 4.77 billion dollars.

Semiconductor export plunged 27.7 percent over the year to 7.57 billion dollars in July on the continued downturn in the global chip industry's business cycle that led to lower price for memory chips and weak demand for system chips.

Display panel shipment diminished 21.8 percent to 1.97 billion dollars on lower LCD panel price and weaker demand for OLED panels.

Mobile phone export dropped 34.8 percent to 880 million dollars last month as domestic tech firms increased the production in overseas factories amid the stiffer competition in the global smartphone market.

The ICT export to China, South Korea's biggest trading partner, declined 30.7 percent to 7.04 billion dollars in July, and those to the United States shrank 23.4 percent to 1.3 billion dollars.

Exports of ICT products to the European Union (EU) and Japan also posted a double-digit fall last month.