November Foreign Exchange Reserves Increase by $2.09 Billion... Impact of Increased Dollar Conversion Amount of Other Currencies

Increase to $416.1 Billion in Just Four Months

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jung] South Korea's foreign exchange reserves increased by more than 2 billion dollars in one month, marking a turnaround to an upward trend after four months.

According to the 'End of November Foreign Exchange Reserves' statistics released by the Bank of Korea on the 5th, South Korea's foreign exchange reserves stood at 416.1 billion dollars, an increase of 2.09 billion dollars compared to the end of the previous month.

The foreign exchange reserves had slightly increased to about 438.6 billion dollars in July, then showed a declining trend for three consecutive months, but turned to an upward trend again last month.

The Bank of Korea explained, "The US dollar depreciated by about 3.5% in November (based on the US dollar index)," adding, "Despite temporary decreases due to foreign exchange swaps with the National Pension Service and a reduction in foreign currency deposits by financial institutions, the US dollar equivalent of foreign currency assets in other currencies increased, leading to a rise in foreign exchange reserves."

The foreign exchange reserves consisted of securities worth 365.62 billion dollars (87.9%), deposits of 26.68 billion dollars (6.4%), SDR 14.65 billion dollars (3.5%), gold 4.79 billion dollars (1.2%), and IMF position 4.36 billion dollars (1.0%).

As of the end of October, South Korea ranked 9th in the world in terms of the size of foreign exchange reserves.

China had the largest amount with 3.0524 trillion dollars, followed by Japan with 1.1946 trillion dollars, and Switzerland with 883.3 billion dollars, ranking 2nd and 3rd respectively. Japan and Switzerland saw decreases in their foreign exchange reserves of 43.5 billion dollars and 8.8 billion dollars respectively in October. Russia (547.2 billion dollars), Taiwan (542.8 billion dollars), India (534.0 billion dollars), Saudi Arabia (463.1 billion dollars), and Hong Kong (417.2 billion dollars) followed.