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Concerns arose over the news that our foreign exchange reserves had significantly decreased today (the 6th).

The last emergency fund we can take out when there is a problem in our financial market is foreign exchange reserves, which have decreased by nearly $20 billion over the past month.

It was used by the foreign exchange authorities to defend the soaring exchange rate, and the controversy continues.



Reporter Kim Jung-woo pointed it out.



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At the end of last month, Korea's foreign exchange reserves stood at 416.7 billion dollars.



In one month, it was reduced by more than $19.66 billion, or more than 27 trillion won at the current exchange rate.



The decrease was the largest in 14 years since the 2008 financial crisis.



This is because when the won-dollar exchange rate fluctuated and exceeded 1,440 won, the accumulated dollars were released to the market to “defend the exchange rate”.



Deputy Prime Minister Choo Kyung-ho said that foreign exchange reserves are used when normal market transactions do not work, and the Bank of Korea also dismissed the crisis, saying that the Bank of Korea still has the world's 8th largest foreign currency.



The opposing argument is also not uncommon.



Taiwan, which has $130 billion more foreign exchange reserves than ours, defended the exchange rate by reducing only $4.3 billion last month.



It is pointed out that we need to approach more cautiously as we do not know how long the dollar will fluctuate.



[Sewoon Hwang/Senior Research Fellow, Capital Market Research Institute: If we do not keep pace with the pace of the Fed's rate hike, the limitations of simply mobilizing foreign exchange reserves to defend the exchange rate will be obvious.]



The US is raising interest rates by 0.75 percentage points. , there is also an analysis that the Bank of Korea has lowered the value of the won by sending a signal that it will only raise it by 0.25 percentage points.



[Seong Tae-yoon/Professor of Economics at Yonsei University: Because the current global financial situation is unstable, the preemptive guidance of maintaining a certain interest rate level itself can act as an instability in the financial market.]



The Bank of Korea is scheduled to set the base rate again next week. , exchange rate fluctuations are expected to act as a major variable.



(Video editing: Park Chun-bae, VJ: Kim Sang-hyuk)