SEOUL -South Korea’s top economic and financial officials agreed at a rare meeting on Thursday to strengthen coordinated efforts to keep the markets stable, while affirming containing inflation was the top policy goal.
Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho told reporters emergency measures could include bond buy-backs, while Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong said a big-step rate increase could be considered after reviewing incoming data.
“Should there be any excessive movements in the bond market, (the authorities) will undertake measures such as emergency bond buy-backs at an appropriate time,” said Choo, adding the authorities will continue to closely monitor the foreign exchange market in order to prevent any excessive movements.
When asked about a possibility of ‘big step’ rate increase, Rhee said “there are three to four weeks left until the next rate decision meeting, so it is a matter to decide after seeing how markets move until then.”
The Bank of Korea is not considering holding any emergency policy review meeting for now, Rhee said.
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Christopher Cushing & Shri Navaratnam)
