[THE INVESTOR] Korean duty-free shops saw the number of foreign customers decline sharply in April from a month earlier, industry data showed on May 23.

The tally on foreign customers that visited local duty-free shops came to 998,000 last month, down 19.2 percent from 1.23 million recorded the previous month, according to the data by the Korea Duty Free Shops Association.

It marked the lowest number in almost two years since the duty-free stores suffered a big drop in foreigners around July 2015, in the wake of the outbreak of the Middle East respiratory syndrome, the association said.

In contrast, the figure for locals rose 6.8 percent on-month to 2.7 million in April. The monthly total shed 1.7 percent from a month ago.

According to the association’s data, the combined sales of the duty-free shops shrank 11.2 percent to US$590 million in April from a month earlier, while the sales from locals increased 12 percent on-month to US$299 million.

By Alex Lee and newswires (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)