All commodity terms of trade (ToT) declined by 0.12 percentage points in the first quarter of 2024 (Q1'24), just as the value of imports increased by 0.51 percentage points during the period.

The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, disclosed this yesterday in its All Commodity Price Indices and ToT report for Q1'24.

The bureau defined ToT as the ratio between a country's export and its import prices.

It noted that an increase in the terms of trade between two periods (or when TOT is greater than 100 percent) means that the value of exports is increasing relative to the value of imports, and the country can afford more imports for the same value of exports.

The bureau also said that the all group export and all group import indices increased by 0.39 percent .

NBS said: "The All-Commodity ToT for January, February, and March 2024 stood at 101.89 per cent, 101.77 per cent, and 101.75 per cent respectively.

"The All-Commodity Group ToT decreased by 0.16 per cent points in February and marginally increased by 0.03 per cent points in March resulting in a decrease of 0.12 per cent points between January and March 2024.

"The All-Region Export Index increased by 0.39 per cent between January and March 2024. "This was due to an increase in changes in export prices to all the regions; Asia (+0.68), America (+0.55), Europe (+0.54), Africa (+0.22), and Oceania (+0.2).

"Similarly, between January and February 2024, export prices increased by (+0.18) per cent point, this was also attributed to changes in the export price to most regions.

"All Region Import Price Index increased by 0.51 per cent point between January and March 2024, this was due to rising import prices from Asia (+0.66), America (+0.52), Europe (+0.49), Oceania (0.25), and Africa (+0.22) of goods imported from the region".