S.Korea's net external financial credit hits record high in 2018

South Korea's net external financial credit hit a new record high last year as local tech companies acquired foreign firms, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Net external financial credit, which measures overseas financial assets subtracting external financial debts from them, reached a fresh high of 413 billion U.S. dollars as of end-2018, up 151.3 billion U.S. dollars from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It came as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the country's top two memory chip makers, purchased foreign firms, leading to an increase in overseas financial assets.

External financial assets gained 58.9 billion U.S. dollars over the year to 1.52 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of last year.

The country's foreign financial debts, which include foreign investment in domestic assets, shrank 92.4 billion U.S. dollars to 1.11 trillion U.S. dollars in the same period.

Among the foreign debts, a short-term external liability with a maturity of less than one year gained 9 billion U.S. dollars over the year to 577.6 billion U.S. dollars as of end-2018.

The ratio of short-term foreign debt to foreign reserves stood at 31.4 percent at the end of last year, the highest since 2014.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)