South Korea's foreign reserves rise for 2 months on strong non-dollar assets

South Korea's foreign reserves rose for two straight months on the back of strong value of non-dollar assets such as the British pound and the Japanese yen, central bank data showed on Wednesday.

Foreign currency reserves came in at 372.48 billion U.S. dollars as of end-April, up 2.64 billion dollars from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It was the second consecutive growth in foreign reserves after falling for four months through February.

The BOK attributed the April increase to a rise in investment income and the higher value of non-dollar assets caused by stronger yen and pound.

The pound appreciated 1.6 percent versus the dollar in April, with the yen surging 4.0 percent to the greenback last month. The European currency inched up 0.1 percent, but the Australian dollar fell 0.5 percent.

South Korea's foreign reserves consisted of 341.26 billion dollars of securities, 22.19 billion dollars of deposits, 4.79 billion dollars of gold bullion, 2.41 billion dollars of special drawing rights and 1.83 billion dollars of International Monetary Fund positions.

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