S.Korea's foreign reserves keep record-breaking trend for 2 months

South Korea's foreign reserves kept a record-breaking trend for two straight months on the back of an increase in investment returns, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Foreign reserves reached a record high of 371.51 billion U.S. dollars as of end-May, up 1.6 billion dollars from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

After turning downward in July last year, the reserves fell to 362.2 billion dollars in January before rebounding in February and touching a new high in April and May.

An increase in investment returns offset a reduction in conversion value of non-dollar assets such as the euro, the BOK said.

The European single currency kept a weak trend to the U.S. dollar after the European Central Bank (ECD) launched its quantitative easing. It reduced the conversion value of euro- denominated assets.

The euro depreciated 1.3 percent to the dollar in May, and the British pound fell 0.7 percent versus the greenback. The Japanese yen and the Australian dollar declined 3.9 percent and 4.2 percent each to the dollar last month.

The foreign currency reserves consisted of 335.51 billion dollars of securities, 26.6 billion dollars of deposits, 4.79 billion dollars of gold bullion, 3.15 billion dollars of special drawing rights and 1.46 billion dollars of International Monetary Fund positions.

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