S.Korea's foreign reserves rebound despite ECB's QE

South Korea's foreign reserves rebounded after falling to the eight-month low due to an increase in investment returns that offset a reduction in conversion value of non-dollar assets such as the euro caused by the European Central Bank (ECB)'s quantitative easing, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Foreign reserves were 362.37 billion U.S. dollars as of end- February, up 0.18 billion dollars from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The foreign reserves declined to the lowest in eight months in January as expectations for the ECB's asset-buying program brought on depreciation in the euro, resulting in lower conversion value of non-dollar assets.

The weak euro trend continued last month, but higher investment returns caused a rebound in foreign reserves, the BOK said.

The European single currency depreciated 1.2 percent to the dollar in February, with the Japanese yen declining 0.8 percent versus the greenback.

South Korea's foreign currency reserves consisted of 332.54 billion dollars of securities, 19.97 billion dollars of deposits, 4.79 billion dollars of gold bullion, 3.2 billion dollars of special drawing rights and 1.87 billion dollars of International Monetary Fund positions.

As of end-January, South Korea ranked the world's seventh- largest holder of foreign reserves, following China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, China's Taiwan and Russia. Endi