hankyoreh

Bank of Korea headquarters in downtown Seoul (Yonhap News)

The Bank of Korea announced that South Korea’s foreign exchange reserves in late June amounted to US$438.28 billion, US$9.43 billion lower than the figure in late May (US$447.71 billion).

The central bank explained the decrease as due to the conversion amount of foreign exchange assets in currencies other than the US dollar decreasing, deposits at financial institutions decreasing, and measures taken to alleviate the volatility of the foreign exchange market.

Compared to the amount in foreign exchange reserves last October (US$469.27 billion), which was the highest the figure has ever been, June’s reserve figure was roughly US$31 billion lower.

South Korea’s foreign currency reserves in June were composed of US$395.27 billion in marketable securities, which include national bonds, government agency bonds, corporate bonds, asset-backed securities, and others (90.2%); US$19.23 billion in deposits (4.4%); US$14.57 billion in special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (3.3%); US$4.79 billion in gold (1.1%); and US$4.42 billion in reserve tranche positions at the IMF, which are holdings IMF members possess through their payment of investments and loans (1.0%). As of May, South Korea’s foreign exchange reserves are the ninth largest in the world.

By Cho Kye-wan, senior staff writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]