South Korea’s import prices rose at their slowest clip in two years last month mainly due to a low base of comparison, the central bank said Monday.

In local currency terms, import prices gained 3.5 percent on-year in March, slowing from a 5.2 percent on-year gain in February, according to the Bank of Korea.

Last month’s figure marks the lowest on-year gain since March 2010, when import prices contracted 4.3 percent from a year earlier, the central bank said.

The slowdown in the growth of import prices was attributed to sharp increases in raw material costs that drove up numbers early last year.

The central bank added that while commodities prices jumped 10.4 percent on-year last month, the overall cost of agricultural products posted minus growth of 13.1 percent.

Crude and liquefied natural gas prices moved up 3.5 percent compared to a year earlier, with the average price for Dubai crude reaching US$122.5 last month, up 5.4 percent from the previous month.

The BOK said import prices of capital and intermediate goods fell 1.6 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively, from the year before.

The country’s export price gain in Korean won, meanwhile, was unchanged from a year earlier. It gained 0.5 percent from February.

The central bank left its policy rate unchanged at 3.25 percent for the 10 straight month in April, citing persistent global economic uncertainty and volatile commodity prices.

South Korea’s annual consumer price growth slowed to a 20-month low of 2.6 percent in March, although there are still concerns that inflationary pressure in Asia’s fourth-largest economy could build further on high oil prices and bad agricultural output. 

(Yonhap News)