Korea's trade terms continue to worsen in March

SEOUL, April 28 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's trade terms again deteriorated from a year earlier last month, but it was mostly due to its export prices slipping at a faster rate than import prices, central bank data showed Tuesday.

The country's terms of trade index for products came to 90.34 in March, down 2.6 percent from the same month last year, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea.

The index measures the amount of imports a country can purchase for each unit of exports.

March marks the 28th consecutive month of an on-year drop since December 2017.

The decline was apparently attributed to a drop in export prices that outpaced that of import prices.

"The country's terms of trade index for products decreased 2.6 percent from the same month last year as its export prices dropped by a greater margin of 9.2 percent than import prices at 6.8 percent," the BOK said in a press release.

In terms of sheer volume, however, exports jumped 10.6 percent on-year, while imports gained 8.8 percent over the cited period.

South Korea's exports slipped 0.2 percent on-year to US$46.9 billion in March, marking a turnaround from a 4.5 percent rise the month before that ended 14 consecutive months of decline.

bdk@yna.co.kr
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