South Korea's export volume saw the sharpest drop in January since the 2009 global financial crisis.
 
The Bank of Korea announced on Tuesday that the nation’s export volume index amounted to 121-point-67 last month, down seven-point-four percent from a year ago.
 
The drop is the largest to be recorded since May 2009 when the index plummeted eleven-point-seven percent.
 
The central bank said that the import volume index also fell five-point-nine percent year-on-year in January to 114-point-04. It was the highest drop posted since November 2009 when the index saw a decline of eleven-point-three percent.
 
The nation’s net terms-of-trade index for products stood at 101-point-34 last month, up five-point-six percent from the same period last year and up six-tenths of a percent from a month ago.
 
The index measures the amount of import goods a country can purchase per unit of its export goods. The figure has been falling slightly every month since last September when it posted its highest level in nearly five-and-a-half years with 101-point-55.