S. Korea's net foreign assets contract in Q2

South Korea's net external assets in debt instruments shrank in the second quarter, according to government data on Saturday, with its external assets growing at a slower pace than its external debt.

The nation's net external assets in debt instruments, which are considered reserve assets, stood at US$449.8 billion at the end of June, compared with $464.2 billion three months earlier, according to the data from the finance ministry.

The figure refers to the difference between Korea's total external assets in debt instruments and total external debt. It serves as a measure of a country's solvency.

The nation's total external debt stood at $503.1 billion at the end of June, up $17.2 billion from three months earlier, the data showed.

Short-term external debt -- with a maturity of one year or less -- totaled $154.4 billion as of the end of June, a gain of $5.7 billion from three months ago.

The figure for the end of June accounted for 30.7 percent of the country's total external debt, an increase from 30.6 percent three months earlier.

"The government will closely monitor the external debt situation as there are pandemic-related uncertainties in the global financial market," the ministry said. "The government will also work for the indicators to recover to the pre-crisis level when the pandemic has gone." (Yonhap)