SEOUL, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's net external credit, which indicates external credit to receive minus foreign debts to pay, hit a new record high last year, central bank data showed Friday.
Net external credit amounted to 456.7 billion U.S. dollars as of end-December, up 60 billion dollars from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The figure kept rising for nine straight years from 2009.
The external credit to receive reached a new high of 875.5 billion dollars as of end-December, up 94.7 billion dollars from a year earlier.
Foreign debts increased 34.7 billion dollars to 418.8 billion dollars in the same period, marking the first increase in three years.
Short-term foreign debts with a maturity of less than a year rose 11.2 billion dollars to 115.9 billion dollars, taking up 27.7 percent of the total external liability. The portion was up 0.4 percentage points from a year ago.
The rate of short-term foreign debts to foreign currency reserves stood at 29.8 percent as of end-December, up 1.6 percentage points from a year earlier. It was the highest since 2014.
