South Korean exports are a huge deal, and several economists view this figure as a global economic "canary in a coal mine."

Korean export data comes out very early compared to other major data releases, and Korea counts the huge economies of China, Japan, Europe, and the US as major partners. That makes Korea's big export-focused industries a good barometer for the rest of the world.

There are several issues contributing to this slowdown, like the plunging value of the Japanese yen, which has made Korean exports less competitive relative to Japanese exports.

"However, if a weak yen was helping Japanese exporters to gain market share over their Korean competitors, then we might have expected to see Korean exports underperform exports from the rest of Asia. In fact, exports from the rest of the region have performed just as badly as Korean exports over the past few years," Capital Economics' Gareth Leather said.