S.Korea's short-term foreign debt falls in Q3
Source: Xinhua | 2020-11-20
South Korea's short-term foreign debt fell in the third quarter, enhancing the country's external financial soundness, central bank data showed Thursday.
External liability totaled 511.0 billion U.S. dollars as of the end of September, up 7.9 billion dollars from three months earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The short-term foreign debt reduced 10.2 billion dollars from three months earlier to 144.1 billion dollars as of end-September, while the long-term liability expanded 18.1 billion dollars to 366.9 billion dollars.
Banks and companies raised foreign currencies in the long term, instead of repaying risky short-term foreign debts, improving the external financial healthiness.
The ratio of short-term foreign debts to the combined external liability stood at 28.2 percent as of end-September, down 2.5 percentage points from three months earlier.
The percentage of short-term foreign debts to the foreign currency reserves declined 3.3 percentage points to 34.3 percent in the three-month period.
Meanwhile, the country's external credit grew 19.5 billion dollars from three months earlier to 972.4 billion dollars at the end of September, sending the net external credit to 461.4 billion dollars.
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