Trade terms up for 10th straight month in January

SEOUL, Feb. 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's terms of trade gained for the 10th consecutive month in January, as export prices rose at a faster pace, central bank data showed Wednesday.

The nation's net terms-of-trade index for goods -- a gauge of trade terms -- increased 7 percent last month from a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It marked the 10th straight month of an on-year rise since April last year, when the trade terms logged the first on-year hike in over two years on low oil prices amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

Last month, the index for customs-cleared export prices gained 3.6 percent from the previous year, marking the third straight month of increase.

The index for import prices fell 3.6 from a year earlier, according to the data.

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