S. Korea’s FX reserves climb to new high for the fourth month in Oct

[Photo by Lee Seung-hwan]

South Korea’s foreign exchange reserves hit a new historic high in October, refreshing peak monthly for the fourth straight month, data showed Wednesday.

According to the data released by the Bank of Korea, the country’s foreign exchange reserves reached $469.21 billion as of the end of October, up $5.24 billion from last month.

The figures have hit new highs since July.

The central bank attributed the increase to a rise in profits from investments in foreign assets and foreign currency-denominated deposits.

Deposits gained $5.95 billion from September to $25.79 billion in end-October. Special drawing rights (SDR) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rose $140 million and the IMF reserve position, or reserve tranche purchases a member may claim from the IMF, also increased $80 million.

Securities, however, declined $940 million to $418.4 billion.

Gold holdings remained unchanged at $4.79 billion.

Korea was the ninth-largest holder of foreign exchange reserves as of the end of September, down one notch from the previous month as Saudi Arabia took the No.8 spot on the back of the soaring international crude prices.

China was the largest holder with $3.2 trillion, followed by Japan with $1.4 trillion and Switzerland with $1.08 trillion.

By Choi Mira

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