South Korea's Producer Prices Down 0.8% in March

Plummeting international oil prices pulled down South Korea's producer prices in March by 0.8 percent from a month earlier.

Data from the central bank revealed that the producer price index for services and goods was at 102.89 last month, down from 103.74 in February, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The figure is a 0.5 percent decrease from the same month last year.

The March decline in producer prices, a key barometer of future inflation, was due mainly to the plummeting international crude prices.

Prices of the Dubai crude in March went down to an average of $33.71 per barrel, from $54.23 in February.

The producer price index of industrial goods dipped by 1.4 percent from the previous month in March, while those of agricultural goods and fishery products gained 1.2 percent due to an increase in food purchases due to the outbreak.

Those of utilities and the service industry declined by 0.3 percent in the same period as people preferred to stay home due to the coronavirus.

The price could even go down if the recent dip suffered of US crude oil is taken into consideration.

US crude oil prices slipped from $18 a barrel to minus $38 early Tuesday, with oil producers running out of space to store the oversupply caused by the outbreak. It went up to above $1 by around noon.

Just before the outbreak, the country's producer prices for all commodities and services jumped by 0.2 percent to 103.93 in January from the prior month.