Trade terms up for 10th straight month in January

This file photo, taken June 4, 2020, shows stacks of cargo containers at South Korea's largest seaport of Busan, 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (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. (Yonhap)