Seoul to discuss currency market intervention report with IMF next week
South Korea will discuss currency market-related issues, such as how to reveal records of its market interventions, with the International Monetary Fund next week, the country’s chief economic policymaker said.
Seoul’s finance ministry said earlier that South Korea is considering disclosing details of its interventions in the foreign exchange market in a move to boost transparency and clear itself of suspicion of influencing exchange rates, according to Yonhap.
South Korea’s financial authorities have persistently claimed they do not interfere in the foreign exchange market but engage in ‘smoothing operations’ against extreme one-sided movements.
“Whether to and how to reveal records of currency market intervention is not something that should be done with the United States,” Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon told reporters. “The issue is (what we have to do) with the whole world.”
Kim said he will discuss the issue with the IMF’S chief, Christine Lagarde, on the sidelines of the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting slated to be held in Washington next week.
Early this week, Kim held phone talks with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stressing that South Korea should not be included on Washington’s currency manipulators list.
The US Treasury Department is set to release its semiannual currency report this month.