South Korea has strengthened its net international investment position (NIIP) by recording $407.4 billion in the positive by the end of March and adding $4 billion from three months ago, data by the Bank of Korea (BOK) showed Thursday.

A positive NIIP makes a creditor nation, or one that has more net external assets than debt.

Korea has been a creditor nation since 2000 after it fully repaid international debt following a liquidity crisis in late 1990s.

The outstanding amount of Korea’s external assets in debt instruments came to $813.1 billion by the end-March, up $28.7 percent from three months ago. It is the first time that the figure exceeded $800 billion threshold. The rise has been fueled by increased investment in offshore bonds by local financial institutions such as insurers.

The nation`s total external liability reached $405.7 billion in the third quarter, up $24.7 billion from a quarter earlier.

Among them, the country’s short-term external debt due by a year or less totaled $115.4 billion as of the end of March to make up 28.4 percent of the country’s total external debt, up 0.8 percentage point from the previous quarter. The figure is the highest since September 2015.

The share of short-term foreign debt against foreign reserves stood at 30.7 percent at the end of March, up 2.4 percentage points from December to mark the highest since the third quarter of 2015, when it reached 31.3 percent.

By Boo Jang-won

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