Foreign Reserves

Korea’s foreign reserves diminished in 14 months due to the recent foreign exchange market situations.

According to the report on the nation’s foreign reserves released by Bank of Korea (BOK) on March 6, Korea had US$372.4 billion of foreign reserves as of the end of February 2013, US$1.51 billion less than the previous month.

“Our revenue from operation of the foreign-currency assets was increased. But, as the Euro and the British pound lost their value, the US dollar equivalent of those currency assets was reduced,” explained Ko Won-hong, Deputy Manager of International Affairs Team at BOK.

The nation’s monthly balance of foreign reserves was in an upward trend for 13 consecutive months from December 2011 (US$306.4 billion) until January 2013 (US$328.9 billion).

It is estimated that Korea had the world’s seventh large amount of foreign reserves as of January this year. China was ranked first with US$3,311.6 billion, followed by Japan (US$1,267.3 billion), Russia (US$532.2 billion), Switzerland (US$531.8 billion) and Taiwan (US$406.6 billion).

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