The Bank of Korea said Friday it sold a net $2.1 billion in the first quarter of the year to help ease the decline of the local currency against the US dollar.

The first-quarter dollar selling marks the seventh straight quarter of dollar selling for market smoothing operations since the third quarter of 2021, according to the central bank.

The selling of US dollars in the first quarter came as the US Federal Reserve’s rate hikes sharply depreciated the value of the local currency, according to data uploaded on the central bank’s homepage.

In the January-March period, the Korean won fell to 1,301.9 on March 31 from 1,272.6 on January 2.

The authorities sold $17.54 billion during the third quarter of 2022, the largest since the third quarter of 2019, when the central bank began releasing such data to help boost the transparency of its market operations. (Yonhap)