SEOUL : South Korea’s overseas alternate reserves shrank final month for a fourth consecutive month and by probably the most because the 2008 world monetary disaster due partly to dollar-selling intervention to assist the gained, knowledge confirmed on Tuesday.
The Financial institution of Korea mentioned the nation’s overseas alternate reserves, measured in U.S. {dollars}, declined in June by $9.43 billion to succeed in $438.28 billion on the finish of the month.
The central financial institution attributed the decline to the U.S. greenback’s power, which minimize the greenback worth of belongings held in different currencies, and its dollar-selling intervention to assist the weakening gained. It didn’t present a breakdown of the figures.
The overseas alternate reserves declined by a mixed $23.49 billion throughout the March-June interval, its knowledge confirmed.
South Korea’s gained fell 8.4 per cent towards the greenback for the primary six months of this yr, simply off a close to 13-year low set on June 30, as a result of mixture of the greenback’s spurt, a rising commerce deficit and sell-off of native shares by overseas buyers.
It was the second-worst performer amongst main Asian currencies for the six-month interval after Japan’s yen, which misplaced some 15 per cent of its worth versus the greenback.
International buyers bought a web 16.51 trillion gained ($12.72 billion) value of native shares on the primary board throughout the January-June interval this yr after a web 25.41 trillion gained sell-off for the entire of final yr, Korea Alternate knowledge confirmed.
The primary board’s benchmark KOSPI fell 21.7 per cent for the primary half of this yr, far worse than a 16.8 per cent drop within the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares exterior Japan for a similar interval. ($1 = 1,298.1400 gained)
