Last year, the increase in overseas securities investment by Koreans rapidly changed from US$12.5 billion to US$6.2 billion, which is half of the increase in foreign domestic investment.
Foreign direct investment by Koreans was 12.06 billion dollars, while foreign domestic investment was only 2.21 billion dollars.
Last year, Koreans' overseas securities investment amounted to $78.41 billion, the highest on record, and stock investment increased by $68.58 billion, the highest on record.
The Bank of Korea's goods account surplus last year fell sharply by $6.12 billion from $10.6 billion in December 2020 to $4.48 billion.
Since the middle of last year, imports have surged, and exports increased by $9.9 billion from the previous year to $62.43 billion, but imports increased by $16.02 billion to $57.95 billion.
Last year, the service account was in a deficit of 3.11 billion dollars, and the transportation account was in a surplus of 15.43 billion dollars due to a surge in import and export transportation.
Last year, record-high imports of $57.95 billion were on the rise for the 12th consecutive month, with a 63.8% increase in raw materials and an 18.5% increase in capital goods and 12.3% in consumer goods.
Exports increased by 78.2% for petroleum products, 34.6% for steel products, 34.1% for semiconductors, 25.4% for chemical products, and 16.5% for information and communication equipment, from the 14th consecutive month of increase year-on-year.
In January of this year, banks' household loans amounted to 160.2 trillion won, a 400 billion won decrease from the end of December last year, and a decline of 200 billion won the previous month.
The Bank of Korea's financial statistics show that while housing mortgage loans (balance of 781 trillion won) increased by 2.2 trillion won in January, and capital investment was more than the 2 trillion won increase in December last year, other loans including credit loans decreased by 2.6 trillion won. It is larger than the monthly decline of 2.2 trillion won, and it is the largest since January 2009 (-3.2 trillion won), the largest decline right after the financial crisis, so it appears to be in a period of recession.
Of the 2.2 trillion won in mortgage loans that increased in January, Jeonse loans amounted to 1.4 trillion won.