BOK's US dollar assets decline in 2020

South Korea's central bank said Wednesday the portion of its US dollar-denominated assets in its overall foreign assets declined last year due to the weakness of the greenback.

At the end of last year, dollar-denominated holdings accounted for 67.7 percent of overall foreign assets held by the Bank of Korea (BOK), the central bank said in its annual report.

The reading marks a 1.4 percentage-point drop from a year earlier.

The portion of US dollar-denominated assets slightly fell due to a weakness in the US dollar after the Federal Reserve eased monetary policy over the COVID-19 pandemic, the BOK said.

Foreign assets do not necessarily mean foreign exchange (FX) reserves and generally include such funds.

The BOK said its net profit jumped to 7.3 trillion won ($6.4 billion) in 2020, compared with a profit of 5.3 trillion won in 2019.

Such a sharp increase was largely attributed to an increase in returns on its foreign assets.

The BOK said 30 percent of its net profit will go to its legal reserves as required by law, with the remaining 5.1 trillion won to be placed in the state coffers. (Yonhap)