Foreign Exchange Reserves in August Total $436.43 Billion... Down $2.18 Billion

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jeong] South Korea's foreign exchange reserves decreased again, dropping by 2.18 billion dollars in one month.

According to the 'End of August Foreign Exchange Reserves' statistics announced by the Bank of Korea on the 5th, South Korea's foreign exchange reserves stood at 436.43 billion dollars, down 2.18 billion dollars compared to the end of the previous month.

The foreign exchange reserves recorded 461.766 billion dollars in February, then decreased for four consecutive months to 438.23 billion dollars in June, slightly increased in July, but have returned to a downward trend.

The Bank of Korea explained that the increase in foreign exchange reserves was due to "foreign currency asset management income and an increase in foreign currency deposits of financial institutions, but the decrease in the dollar-converted value of foreign currency assets in other currencies was the cause."

To calculate the size of foreign exchange reserves, the Bank of Korea converts other foreign currency assets such as euros, pounds, and yen into dollars at the end of each month. Last month, the dollar strengthened, causing the dollar-converted value of other foreign currency assets to relatively decrease. The US dollar appreciated by about 2.3% in August.

As of the end of last month, the foreign exchange reserves consisted of securities worth 394.94 billion dollars (90.5%), deposits of 17.9 billion dollars (4.1%), Special Drawing Rights (SDR) of 14.46 billion dollars (3.3%), gold of 4.79 billion dollars (1.1%), and International Monetary Fund (IMF) position of 4.33 billion dollars (1.0%).

As of the end of July, South Korea's foreign exchange reserves ranked 9th in the world.

China had the largest reserves at 3.1041 trillion dollars, followed by Japan with 1.323 trillion dollars. Next were Switzerland (959.8 billion dollars), Russia (576.9 billion dollars), India (574.3 billion dollars), Taiwan (547.8 billion dollars), Saudi Arabia (463.2 billion dollars), and Hong Kong (441.8 billion dollars).

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