December Foreign Exchange Reserves Reach $408.82 Billion... All-Time High

Increase in Dollar-Equivalent Value of Foreign Currency Assets Denominated in Other Currencies Due to Weakness of the US Dollar

9th Largest Foreign Exchange Reserves in the World as of November

[Asia Economy Reporter Shim Nayoung] South Korea's foreign exchange reserves reached a record high of 408.82 billion dollars in December.

According to the "Foreign Exchange Reserves as of the End of December 2019" announced by the Bank of Korea on the 6th, the foreign exchange reserves at the end of December stood at 408.82 billion dollars, an increase of 1.36 billion dollars compared to 407.46 billion dollars at the end of November.

Park Seong-ho, head of the Foreign Exchange Accounting Team at the International Department, explained the reason for the increase: "The dollar-equivalent value of foreign currency assets denominated in other currencies increased due to the weakness of the US dollar."

Securities accounted for 385.02 billion dollars, representing 94.2% of the total foreign exchange reserves. Deposits amounted to 12.85 billion dollars (3.1%), gold was 4.79 billion dollars (1.2%), SDRs (Special Drawing Rights of the IMF) were 3.307 billion dollars (0.8%), and the IMF position was 2.79 billion dollars (0.7%).

As of the end of November, South Korea ranked 9th in the world in terms of the size of its foreign exchange reserves. Looking at the ranking by country, China was first with 3.0956 trillion dollars. Japan was second with 1.3173 trillion dollars, and Switzerland was third with 833.66 billion dollars.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.