Lee Un-ju of the Democratic Party of Korea, a supreme council member, said on the 16th that a single careless remark by (Rhee Chang-yong), the Bank of Korea governor, sent Korea's bond, stock, and foreign exchange markets into turmoil over the weekend.
On her Facebook page the same day, the supreme council member shared an article in which Rhee Chang-yong, the Bank of Korea (BOK) governor, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that the scale and timing of a rate cut, or whether there will be a change of direction in policy, depends on new data to come, and she made the above remarks.
The supreme council member said that to foreigners who watched this interview, the remark that there could be a change of direction in policy depending on new data would have sounded like a shift to a rate-hike stance depending on data such as dwelling prices. She added that Rhee's remarks reportedly roiled the bond market.
The supreme council member said that just as there had already been expectations of increased Government Bonds supply due to investment in the United States, Government Bonds prices plunged, and that foreigners' selling of Government Bonds sent the exchange rate surging and stock prices plunging.
The supreme council member said that she had never seen, in Korea or abroad, a Central Bank governor speak so bluntly about interest rates. She went on to criticize that, moreover, he even expressed an intention to intervene in the foreign exchange market, which is crossing the line for a Bank of Korea (BOK) governor, not even the Minister of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The supreme council member added, did he really not know that blunt, aggressive remarks would make the market lurch, and why does he keep taking an interest in and focusing on irrelevant issues while doing his own job so carelessly.