Korea's terms of trade continued to improve in March from a year earlier as export prices rose at a faster clip than import prices, central bank data showed Monday.

The terms of trade index for products came to 104.01 last month, up 0.5 percent from revised 103.49 the previous month, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

From a year earlier, the March reading marks a 5.1 percent increase. March also marked the third consecutive month the country posted an on-year gain in trade terms.

The index shows how the country's exports are doing in comparison with those of others by measuring the amount of imports a country can purchase for each unit of its exports.

Korea's exports slipped 8.2 percent on-year to $42.98 billion in March, marking the 15th consecutive month of decline. Imports plunged 18.3 percent on-year in the same month.

The March figure for exports still marked an improvement from a 12.2 on-year decline in the previous month that followed an 18.5 percent plunge the month before.

In March, prices of Korean exports gained 3.2 percent from the same month last year while import prices climbed 1.4 percent on-year, according to the BOK data.The income terms of trade, which measures the amount of imports that can be purchased with the total value of exports, rose 8.4 percent on-year in March. (Yonhap)