The Bank of Korea announced on Wednesday that it had bought a total of $5.97 billion in the second quarter of the year for market-smoothing operations. This is the eighth consecutive quarter of dollar purchasing to help stabilize the local currency against the U.S. dollar. The amount is higher than the $2.1 billion purchased in the previous quarter.
The dollar buying was prompted by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate hikes, which caused the value of the Korean currency to depreciate. The Bank of Korea’s data, released to increase transparency in its market operations, show that the highest amount of dollar buying in the past four years was in the third quarter of 2022, when $17.54 billion was purchased.
sam@yna.co.kr
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