Despite heightened tensions between the two Koreas, inter-Korean trade hit a record high last year.

The Korea International Trade Association(KITA) said Thursday that inter-Korean trade in 2015 amounted to two-point-71 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 15-point-eight percent from the previous record set in 2014.

South Korea’s exports to the North grew eleven percent to one-point-26 billion dollars last year, while imports from the North increased 20-point-three percent to one-point-45 billion.

The cumulative trade volume between the two sides stood at 24-and-a-half billion dollars through last year.

A KITA official attributed the surge in inter-Korean trade to a sharp jump in shipment of semiconductor products from the South, and increased demand worldwide for clothes made at the inter-Korean Gaeseong Industrial Complex.