Containers are stacked up for outbound shipments at Gamman Pier in Busan on Jan.21. (Yonhap)
South Korea's terms of trade worsened for the 14th straight month in May due to fast-rising import prices of oil and other key commodities, central bank data showed Wednesday.
The nation's net terms-of-trade index for goods -- a gauge of overall trade terms -- stood at 85.33 last month, down 10.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The figure, however, was up 1.3 percent from a month earlier, the first on-month rise in four months.
The index is calculated by dividing the index for export prices by that for import prices. It shows the amount of imports a country can buy for each unit of exports.
Import prices of oil and key commodities have been on the rise amid the protracted global supply-chain disruptions and a rebound in demand from the pandemic.
The report showed that import prices jumped 24.3 percent on-year in May, a far faster pace of growth than export prices, which increased 11 percent over the same period. (Yonhap)
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