The United States has kept South Korea and nine other economies on its watch list for foreign exchange policies, a Treasury Department report showed Thursday.
The Treasury Department released its semiannual Report to Congress on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States on July 23. The monitoring list includes South Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland. All 10 countries were on the list in the previous report released in January.
South Korea was removed from the list in November 2023 for the first time since April 2016 but was placed back on it in November 2024. It has remained on the list since. The report noted that Korea's current account surplus grew considerably to 6.6 percent of GDP last year, up from 5.3 percent in 2024, mainly due to goods trade in semiconductors and technology products.
The report underscored sustained depreciation pressure on the Korean won. It said the Treasury stated in January that the pressures were not in line with Korea's strong fundamentals and that excess volatility is undesirable. Korean authorities' foreign exchange intervention appeared to focus on smoothing excess volatility, it added.
