Bank of Korea Abruptly Stops Publishing Foreign-Reserve Ranking After More Than 25 Years

The Bank of Korea has quietly dropped a monthly statistic it had published for more than 25 years: South Korea’s ranking among countries by foreign-exchange reserves.

The ranking was absent from the central bank’s Aug. 3 release on reserves at the end of August. The omission marked the first time since February 2001 that the monthly report did not include South Korea’s global position. The bank gave no advance explanation and did not separately announce the change.

The decision followed wider swings in the ranking. South Korea stood ninth globally at the end of last year, then fell to 10th in January and 12th in February. It dropped to 13th at the end of May before climbing three places to 10th at the end of June.

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The decision was based on the judgment that the ranking of foreign reserves has little to do with South Korea’s external financial soundness, while excessive interpretations have been made.

A Bank of Korea official said the ranking had little connection to South Korea’s external financial soundness but had prompted excessive interpretations. The official cited the sharp rise in gold prices as one reason for early-year changes and said the bank had discussed the issue internally for several months. Another official said the information could still be checked on the International Monetary Fund website, since the ranking was not produced by the Bank of Korea.

The same release showed that foreign reserves reached $442.28 billion at the end of August, up $14.33 billion from July. That exceeded the previous monthly record of $14.29 billion, set in May 2009. Reserves have risen for three straight months since June, although they remain about $40 billion below the record $469.21 billion reached in October 2021.

The bank attributed the increase to a sharp rise in foreign-currency deposits held by financial institutions, investment income and higher dollar-converted values for foreign assets denominated in other currencies. Securities rose by $7.07 billion to $387.07 billion, while deposits increased by $7.17 billion to $30.3 billion. Special drawing rights and the IMF position also edged higher. Gold holdings remained at $4.79 billion because the bank values them at their purchase price.

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The ranking information is not produced by the Bank of Korea and can be checked at any time on the IMF website, so it cannot be considered undisclosed.