SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden are expected to discuss a currency swap, Yonhap news agency reported Friday, citing a senior official in Yoon’s office.
Restoring a currency swap with the United States would be a way to counter the persistent decline of the won against the dollar, which is around 17% this year, to make it Asia’s worst-performing currency. , with the exception of the Japanese yen.
Officials in Washington and Seoul are hosting a leaders’ meeting on the sidelines of next week’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
A $60 billion currency swap pact set up in March 2020 by South Korea’s central bank and the US Federal Reserve as an emergency measure to stabilize markets expired at the end of the year. last year.
Such an exchange would allow South Korea to borrow a certain amount of U.S. dollars for a predefined period and rate, in exchange for won, to solve dollar liquidity difficulties.