S.Korea's foreign debts soundness improve in Q1 on falling debts

SEOUL, May 25 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's foreign debts soundness improved in the first quarter due to falling debts and rising lending to overseas players, central bank data showed on Wednesday.

Outstanding foreign debts were 385.8 billion U.S. dollars as of end-March, down 9.6 billion dollars from three months earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

External credit, which means lending to foreign players, reached 730.7 billion dollars at the end of March, up 13.2 billion dollars from three months ago.

Net external credit amounted to 344.9 billion dollars as of end-March, posting the highest in the country's history. It was up from 322.2 billion dollars from three months ago.

Short-term foreign debts with a maturity of less than a year reduced 4.3 billion dollars from three months earlier to 102.8 billion dollars as of end-March.

The ratio of short-term foreign debts to the total external liabilities declined from 27.1 percent at the end of 2015 to 26.6 percent three months later.