Increase After One Month... Up by $780 Million
Last month, as the US dollar weakened, South Korea's foreign exchange reserves increased by about 800 million dollars compared to the previous month.
According to the foreign exchange reserves statistics announced by the Bank of Korea on the 5th, as of the end of March, the foreign exchange reserves stood at 426.07 billion dollars, an increase of 780 million dollars from the end of the previous month.
The foreign exchange reserves had increased for three consecutive months since November last year, but turned to a decline in February this year due to the strengthening of the US dollar, and switched back to an increase last month.
The Bank of Korea explained, "The foreign exchange reserves increased as the US dollar equivalent of foreign currency assets in other currencies rose due to the weakening of the US dollar."
Last month, the dollar depreciated by about 2.4% (based on the US dollar index), meaning that the foreign currency assets converted into US dollars increased accordingly.
Breaking down the foreign exchange reserves by asset type, securities such as government bonds and corporate bonds (377.59 billion dollars) increased by 3.09 billion dollars compared to the previous month.
On the other hand, deposits (24.14 billion dollars) decreased by 2.61 billion dollars, and Special Drawing Rights (SDR, 14.8 billion dollars) remained unchanged. The 'IMF position' (4.74 billion dollars), which is the right to draw exchangeable currency from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), increased by 300 million dollars.
Gold is recorded at the purchase price without reflecting market prices, so it was tallied at 4.79 billion dollars, the same as the previous month. The Bank of Korea has not purchased gold for 10 years since February 2013.
As of the end of February, South Korea's foreign exchange reserves ranked 9th in the world.
China had the largest reserves at 3.1332 trillion dollars, followed by Japan (1.226 trillion dollars), Switzerland (898.2 billion dollars), Russia (574.2 billion dollars), India (562.7 billion dollars), Taiwan (558.4 billion dollars), Saudi Arabia (452.3 billion dollars), and Hong Kong (429.1 billion dollars).
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