South Korea
In 2024, South Korea had a net international investment position of 58.4% of GDP, owning 133.6% abroad and owing 75.2%. Of what it owes, 54.7% is equity-like (direct investment and portfolio equity) and the rest is debt.
The balance sheet through time
| Year | Net position | Assets | Liabilities | Reserves | Current account | Crisis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | -6.9% | currency |
| 1975 | -31.4% | 10.9% | 42.3% | 3.6% | -8.7% | currency |
| 1980 | -34.6% | 12.2% | 46.8% | 4.4% | -10.3% | currency |
| 1985 | -43.3% | 10.0% | 53.3% | 2.8% | -2.0% | banking |
| 1990 | -7.0% | 11.7% | 18.7% | 5.1% | -1.0% | |
| 1995 | -7.3% | 17.5% | 24.8% | 5.6% | -1.7% | |
| 2000 | -7.1% | 30.2% | 37.3% | 16.1% | 1.7% | banking |
| 2005 | -14.8% | 37.9% | 52.7% | 21.6% | 1.3% | |
| 2010 | -11.1% | 58.2% | 69.3% | 24.4% | 2.3% | |
| 2015 | 13.0% | 74.0% | 61.0% | 23.6% | 6.8% | |
| 2020 | 27.6% | 113.2% | 85.6% | 25.1% | 4.4% | |
| 2024 | 58.4% | 133.6% | 75.2% | 21.8% | 5.3% |
Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 All figures as a share of GDP. Every fifth year shown, plus the first and last. Crisis column is the FinObservatory atlas, deduplicated across its five chronologies. Methodology
What it owes, and in what form
The composition of external liabilities. Direct investment and portfolio equity are equity-like: their value falls when the country does badly, so the foreign investor shares the loss. Portfolio debt and other investment (mostly cross-border bank lending) are fixed claims that do not.
| Year | Direct investment | Portfolio equity | Portfolio debt | Other investment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980first | 11.4% | 0.6% | 2.8% | 85.2% |
| 2024latest | 21.3% | 33.4% | 28.4% | 16.9% |
Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 Share of total external liabilities. First and latest year with a complete instrument split (45 years available). Methodology
Reading this page
The atlas records 17 distinct crisis episodes for South Korea since 1970. The crisis column marks them beside the balance sheet, and it is deliberately left to the reader to look. This page does not narrate a causal story about deteriorating positions and subsequent crises, because for most countries no such story survives inspection, and the cross-country table on the index shows why.
EWN is a reconstruction. Where a country never reported a position, the authors estimate it, and the file carries no flag separating a reported cell from an estimated one, so this page cannot mark them either.