Japanese investors have been putting their money into the South Korean financial market even after Japan's devastating quake, data showed Monday, easing speculation that they may repatriate overseas assets to finance Japan's post-quake rehabilitation.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami hit the northeastern part of Japan on March 11, leaving more than 20,000 people dead or injured.

Japanese funds worth a net 28 billion won (US$25.2 million) flowed into South Korea between March 11 and 22, according to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

The FSS said Japanese investors initially pulled a net $10 million worth of funds out of the Korean markets until March 16. Since then, however, Japanese money has flowed back into the market.

"As most of Japanese funds are capital held by strategic institutional investors, there has been no conspicuous money outflow even after the quake," said an official at the FSS.   

The FSS earlier said there is only a slim chance that Japanese investors will pull their money from the local market in the short term in the wake of the devastating quake.

Even if Japanese capital outflows take place, their impact on the South Korean market is expected to be limited, given the small size of investment by Japanese investors, it added.

Japanese investors held shares worth 6.61 trillion won as of the end of last month, accounting for a meager 1.8 percent of the total foreign stock holdings, according to data compiled by the FSS.   

Their holding of Korean bonds reached 708.2 billion won as of end-February, accounting for only 1 percent of the total holdings of foreign investors.

(Yonhap News)