SEOUL, Augcasinoclassic. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's foreign debt fell for the second consecutive quarter owing to lower long-term liability that offset higher short-term debt, central bank data showed Wednesday.
Foreign debt declined by 9.2 billion U.S. dollars to 658.3 billion dollars in the April-June quarter after reducing 5 billion dollars in the previous quarter, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
Short-term foreign debt with maturity of less than one year added 0.9 billion dollars to 142.0 billion dollars in the second quarter, but long-term external liability decreased 10.1 billion dollars to 516.3 billion dollars.
The ratio of short-term foreign debt to the total external liability increased 0.4 percentage points from three months earlier to 21.6 percent at the end of June.
The ratio of short-term foreign debt to foreign reserves advanced 0.8 percentage points to 34.4 percent.
Net external credit, or external credit minus foreign debt, came to 381.5 billion dollars at the end of June, down 3.1 billion dollars from three months earlier.■