SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's corporate bond sale rose last month due to a surging issuance by industrial companies, financial watchdog data showed Monday.
The issuance of corporate bonds came in at 21.08 trillion won (15.6 billion U.S. dollars) in September, up 9.6 percent from the previous month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.
It was attributed to the soaring funding demand from industrial companies despite high policy rates.
Bonds, sold by industrial companies, expanded to 3.2 trillion won (2.4 billion dollars) in September from 490 billion won (362.2 million dollars) a month earlier.
Financial companies-issued bonds decreased 10.1 percent over the month to 16.14 trillion won (11.9 billion dollars) in September, while the issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) more than doubled to 1.73 trillion won (1.3 billion dollars).
The central bank has left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January after hiking it by 3.0 percentage points for the past one and a half years.
Equity financing, including initial public offering (IPO) and rights issuance, stood at 2.7 trillion won (2 billion dollars) in September, soaring from 566.9 billion won (419 million dollars) in the previous month. ■
