Amid Growing Global Stock Market Uncertainties
Foreign investors’ listed bond holdings in South Korea exceeded 200 trillion won for the first time in history. According to experts, this is because the South Korean economy is maintaining a high level of creditworthiness and global stock market uncertainties are increasing to make the government bonds of South Korea more attractive.
The Financial Supervisory Service announced on Oct. 14 that the holdings added up to 203.614 trillion won at the end of September, up 3.3 percent from the previous month, and foreign investors’ proportion in the domestic listed bond market rose from 7.3 percent to 9.2 percent from January to September this year.
The holdings are divided into 154.7 trillion won of government bonds and 48.8 trillion won of specific laws bonds. Those consist of 93.326 trillion won of listed bonds with maturity of one year to less than five years, 5.7134 trillion won of those with maturity of at least five years, and 5.3153 trillion won of those with maturity of less than one year.
Last month, foreigners’ net listed bond investment in South Korea was 5.172 trillion won. Specifically, the net buying was 11.268 trillion won and redemption at maturity was 6.096 trillion won. Their net investment in government bonds and net monetary stabilization bond redemption were 1.5 trillion won and 40 billion won, respectively.
In the meantime, they net bought 2.505 trillion won of listed stocks in South Korea last month, when their domestic stock holdings decreased 28.7 trillion won to 769.2 trillion won.