S. Korea's trade terms rise for 4th straight month in July

SEOUL, Aug. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's terms of trade rose for the fourth straight month in July as import prices fell at a faster pace than export prices, central bank data showed Wednesday.

The country's net terms-of-trade index for goods -- a gauge of trade terms -- came in at 95.77 in July, up 4.2 percent from a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It marked the fourth straight month of an on-year rise since April when the trade terms posted the first on-year gain in over two years on low oil prices.

The figure is calculated by dividing the index for export prices by that for import prices, showing the amount of imports a country can buy for each unit of exports. The base year is 2015 with a benchmark index of 100.

In July, export prices declined 7.9 percent from the previous year on a customs-clearance basis and import prices fell 11.6 percent, causing the trade terms to improve, the BOK said.

South Korea's exports, which account for about 50 percent of the economy, extended their slump to the fifth consecutive month in July amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the pace of decline sharply slowed due to major countries' economic reopenings.

The subindex measuring the country's export volume slipped 0.7 percent on-year, while that of import volume gained 0.5 percent in the cited period, the BOK said.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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