$410 Short-term Credit
The Bank of Korea announced on March 27 that South Korea’s net short-term foreign credit totaled US$409.727 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, increasing by 0.4% from the previous quarter. The amount is estimated to break the US$410 billion mark in the first quarter of this year.
It increased for three quarters in a row after having dropped from US$398.95 billion to US$396.93 billion between the last quarter of 2014 and the following quarter. Last year, the amount increased 3.2% or US$12.796 billion. Likewise, it increased 72.4% or US$172.081 billion until the last quarter of 2015 since records began in the first quarter of 2011.
In the meantime, the short-term foreign liabilities are on the decline. In the last quarter of 2015, the short-term foreign credit accounted for about 72% of the total foreign credit whereas the short-term foreign liabilities were reduced from US$154.097 billion to US$108.735 billion to represent 27% of the total foreign liabilities.
The ratio of short-term foreign liabilities to reserve assets fell from 39.1% to 32.3% between 2012 and 2013 and then to 32% and 29.6% in 2014 and last year, respectively. The percentage at the end of last year is the lowest since 2004, when it had been as low as 27.3%.