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South Korea actively claimed its economy's resilience from financial woes in emerging economies, citing falling foreign debts, fiscal soundness and persistent current account surplus.
The South Korean economy showed stable picture compared with other Asian emerging economies due to robust economic fundamentals, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said in a statement Wednesday.
Financial markets in Asian emerging countries fluctuated recently amid escalating concerns over an early exit of U.S. quantitative easing.
The Indian currency fell to the record low due to foreign fund exodus with the Indonesian currency dropping to the lowest level in more than four years. The Thai Baht also declined to the lowest mark in around one year.
The South Korean currency appreciated 1.65 percent against the U.S. dollar last month in a stark contrast to falls of 2.24 percent in India, 3.41 percent in Indonesia and 0.67 percent in the Philippines and Thailand.
For the first 20 days of this month, stocks tumbled 5.68 percent in India, 9.44 percent in Indonesia, 3.40 percent in China' s Taiwan and 3.67 percent in Thailand, respectively, while those in South Korea fell at a relatively low rate of 1.36 percent.
Foreign funds flowed into the South Korean financial market since July, but other Asian emerging markets were seeing foreign fund outflow due to concerns over the economies.
The Finance Ministry attributed the stable movement to falling short-term foreign debts, fiscal healthiness and the current account surplus trend.
Foreign debts due less than one year in South Korea accounted for 29.1 percent of the total external liabilities as of the end of June, lower than 72 percent in Hong Kong, 41.9 percent in Thailand, 47.9 percent in Malaysia and 74.6 percent in Japan at the end of March, according to World Bank.
The expected rate of current account surplus to gross domestic product in 2013 was 2.7 percent for South Korea, higher than minus 4.9 percent for India, 1 percent for Thailand and minus 3.3 percent for Indonesia, according to data by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The IMF data showed that the estimated ratio of fiscal surplus to GDP in 2013 was 2.4 percent for South Korea, higher than minus 4 percent for Vietnam, minus 8.3 percent for India, minus 2.7 percent for Thailand, minus 2.8 percent for Indonesia.
Factors that countries showing signs of crisis had in common were the accumulating current account deficits and foreign fund outflows, said Shin Je-yoon, the country's financial regulator chief. Shin stressed that South Korea kept the robust trend of current account surplus and foreign fund inflow into the local bond market.
