South Korea’s import prices rose at their slowest clip in more than two years in April mainly due to a drop in the cost of refined petroleum and nonferrous metal products, the central bank said Tuesday.

In local currency terms, import prices gained just 1.7 percent on-year in April, slowing from a 3.5 percent on-year gain in March, 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.

“There were gains in commodities, capital and consumer goods in the cited month vis-a-vis the year before, but this was offset by drops in prices for farm and metal products,” the BOK said.

Prices for petroleum products increased 5.9 percent on-year in April, down sharply from 14.2 percent spike tallied in the previous month, it added.

The BOK said import prices of raw materials rose 3.0 percent from a year earlier, while the number for intermediate goods remained unchanged.

Import prices for capital and finished goods rose 2.9 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

The country’s export price gain in terms of the Korean won, meanwhile, moved up 2 percent from a year earlier and gained 0.6 percent from March.

The central bank left its policy rate unchanged at 3.25 percent for the 11th straight month in May, citing persistent global economic uncertainties.

South Korea’s annual consumer price growth slowed to a 21-month low of 2.5 percent in April from a year earlier, slowing from a 2.6 percent on-year gain in March. It marked the second month in a row inflation has been in the 2 percent range. 

(Yonhap News)