[Anchor]
The won-dollar exchange rate has dropped to the 1,340-won range during trading for the first time since July of last year. Driven by strong export performance and overlapping internal and external conditions, projections suggest the downward trend will likely continue for the time being.
Reporter Kim Hye-min has the details.
[Reporter]
Song Min-seung is heading to the United States to attend a friend's wedding.
Anticipating a drop in the won-dollar exchange rate, he had delayed exchanging currency.
Today (September 4), the exchange rate at the Incheon Airport currency exchange booth stood at 1,409 won per dollar, which is more than 160 won cheaper than at the end of last May when rates were soaring.
[Song Min-seung / U.S. Traveler: Two or three months ago, the exchange rate was 1,500 won, so I couldn't even dare to do it. But seeing a downward trend, I thought about waiting until the day before departure, and it kept dropping, so I ended up exchanging my money right on the day of departure.]
In the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won-dollar exchange rate plummeted to 1,349.5 won during trading, dropping into the 1,340-won range for the first time since July 1 of last year.
The pace of the drop is also rapid, plunging by more than 200 won in just two months.
Exporting companies continue to sell off their dollars in the market, while foreign investors' selling of South Korean stocks has slowed down somewhat recently.
Additionally, speculations that the U.S. and Japan might take additional intervention measures to curb the weak yen are also having an impact.
Analysts suggest that as the value of the Japanese yen rises, the value of the South Korean won, which is bundled together with Asian currencies, also tends to rise accordingly.
Expectations that the interest rate gap between the U.S. and South Korea could narrow overlapped last night as the possibility of the U.S. freezing its benchmark interest rate was raised.
[Christopher Waller / Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors: If the data released over the next two weeks continues this trend, I will support maintaining interest rates at their current level.]
Fueled by robust semiconductor exports, July's current account recorded a surplus in the 42 billion dollar range, marking the second-largest in history, which also had a major impact.
[Joo Won / Head of Economic Research Division, Hyundai Research Institute: There is not a single place forecasting that the South Korean economy will perform poorly in the second half of the year. To that extent, if South Korea's economic growth rate itself rises due to semiconductor exports, the value of the won will also go up... You can consider the 1,300-won range as the new normal.]
Some securities firms have even released projections that, with an increase in corporate dollar-selling volume, the exchange rate could drop to the low 1,300-won range in the short term.
(Video by Lee Moo-jin | Video Editing by Jung Yong-hwa | VJ: Jung Han-wook | Design: Cho Su-in)
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