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S. Korea's foreign currency deposit drops in February

SEOUL, March 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's foreign currency deposit logged the fastest monthly fall in over 10 years in February due to a sharp drop in the U.S. dollar deposit, central bank data showed Wednesday.

The deposit, denominated in foreign currencies, came in at 97.52 billion U.S. dollars at the end of February, down by 11.73 billion dollars from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It marked the highest reduction since June 2012 as companies withdrew the U.S. dollar fund from banks for overseas investment and import settlement.

The deposit, denominated in the U.S. dollar, tumbled by 8.19 billion dollars from a month earlier to 84.15 billion dollars at the end of February.

The Japanese yen and the euro deposits shrank to 6.13 billion dollars and 4.55 billion dollars, respectively, and the Chinese yuan deposit slipped to 1.35 billion dollars in the cited month.

Foreign currency deposit, owned by companies, dipped by 11.33 billion dollars to 82.95 billion dollars last month, while the individuals-possessed deposit shed by 0.4 billion dollars to 14.57 billion dollars.