SEOUL, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The foreign holdings of South Korean bonds hit a new record high last month amid the record-low policy rate, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
The foreign ownership of local listed bonds reached a new high of 174 trillion won (154.2 billion U.S. dollars) as of the end of April, an increase of 3.1 trillion won (2.7 billion U.S. dollars) from a month ago, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
For the first four months of this year, foreigners purchased a net 39.4 trillion won (34.9 billion U.S. dollars) worth of domestic bonds.
Given the maturing debts worth 16.8 trillion won (14.9 billion U.S. dollars) during the January-April period, the net investment in local bonds amounted to 22.6 trillion won (20 billion U.S. dollars).
It came amid the record-low benchmark rate, which has been left unchanged at 0.50 percent since May last year.
Solid economic fundamentals also raised foreign demand for local bonds. The country's real gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 1.6 percent in the first quarter from the previous quarter, recovering to a pre-pandemic level.
Meanwhile, the foreign holdings of domestic stocks totaled 822.4 trillion won (728.9 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of April, taking up 30.8 percent of the total market capitalization.
During the January-April period, offshore investors dumped a net 9.3 trillion won (8.2 billion U.S. dollars) worth of local stocks. Enditem