Foreign Exchange Reserves of $461.53 Billion Last Month... Decrease for 3 Consecutive Months

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jeong] South Korea's foreign exchange reserves decreased by nearly 1.6 billion dollars in one month, marking a decline for three consecutive months.

According to the foreign exchange reserves statistics announced by the Bank of Korea on the 7th, as of the end of January this year, South Korea's foreign exchange reserves amounted to 461.53 billion dollars. This is a decrease of 1.59 billion dollars compared to 463.12 billion dollars at the end of December last year.

The Bank of Korea explained that this was due to the decrease in the US dollar conversion amount of foreign currency assets in other currencies and the reduction of foreign currency deposits of financial institutions.

By asset type, securities such as government bonds and corporate bonds decreased by 12.62 billion dollars compared to the previous month, recording 409.07 billion dollars. Deposits increased by 11.13 billion dollars to 11.13 billion dollars.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDR) stood at 15.29 billion dollars, down by 80 million dollars. The IMF position, which is the exchangeable currency withdrawal right to the IMF, was 4.61 billion dollars, down by 30 million dollars, and gold remained unchanged at 4.79 billion dollars compared to the previous month.

Domestic foreign exchange reserves had been increasing from July to October last year, reaching record highs, but turned to a decline in November.

As of the end of December, the size of domestic foreign exchange reserves ranks 8th in the world. China (3.2502 trillion dollars) has the largest amount, followed by Japan (1.4058 trillion dollars) and Switzerland (1.1100 trillion dollars).

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