The U.S. Donald Trump administration has redesignated Korea as a currency monitoring country.
The U.S. Treasury on the 23rd (local time), in its semiannual report to Congress titled "Macroeconomic and foreign exchange policies of major trading partners," placed 10 countries, including Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and Thailand, on the currency monitoring list.
These 10 countries were all included on the monitoring list in the report in January.
The report analyzed Korea by saying, "Despite a large current account surplus, the won has faced persistent depreciation pressure."
It went on to say, "Korean authorities are making progress in easing restrictions on foreign investors' participation in Korea's foreign exchange market," adding, "This appears likely to support market liquidity and price discovery over the medium term."