SEOUL, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's corporate bond sale logged a double-digit growth last month due to solid refinancing demand, financial watchdog data showed Thursday.
The issuance of corporate bonds amounted to 25.11 trillion won (18.8 billion U.S. dollars) in January, up 67.0 percent compared to the previous month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
It was attributed to robust refunding demand from both industrial and financial companies.
The country's central bank had left its key rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January last year after hiking it by 3.0 percentage points for the past one and a half years.
Bonds, sold by industrial companies, skyrocketed to 9.98 trillion won (7.5 billion dollars) in January from 740.5 billion won in the previous month.
Financial companies-issued bonds gained 12.3 percent to 14.77 trillion won, while the issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) tumbled 67.9 percent last month.
Equity financing, including initial public offering (IPO) and rights issuance, stood at 277.7 billion won in January, down 57.7 percent from the previous month. (1 won equals 0.00075 U.S. dollars) ■
