SEOUL, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's foreign currency reserves kept a record-breaking trend for the third straight month to January as the U.S. dollar weakness increased the conversion value of non-dollar assets, central bank data showed Monday.
Foreign reserves reached a new high of 395.75 billion U.S. dollars as of end-January, up 6.49 billion dollars from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
It continued to break the previous records, rising from 387.25 billion dollars in November to 389.27 billion dollars in December.
The dollar weakness led to higher conversion value of non-dollar assets. The European single currency appreciated 3.9 percent versus the greenback in January, while the British pound and the Japanese yen gained 5.3 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.
The foreign reserves were composed of 368.04 billion dollars of securities, 17.86 billion dollars of deposits, 4.79 billion dollars of gold bullion, 3.43 billion dollars of special drawing rights and 1.63 billion dollars of IMF positions.
As of end-December, South Korea was the ninth largest holder of foreign reserves, unchanged from the previous month. Enditem
