SEOUL, June 5 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's institutional investment in overseas real estate rose in the fourth quarter of last year despite uncertainty over overseas property markets, financial watchdog data showed Wednesday.
Outstanding overseas real estate investment by local financial companies came to 57.6 trillion won (41.8 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2023, up 1.2 trillion won (871.1 million dollars) from three months earlier, according to Financial Supervisory Service.
It accounted for 0.8 percent of total assets in the financial sector.
Insurers had the largest share of 54.4 percent in the total overseas real estate investment, trailed by banks with 20.2 percent and brokerages with 15.2 percent.
Investment in North America took up the biggest share of 60.3 percent, followed by Europe with 20.0 percent and Asia with 7.3 percent.
Of the total investment, 18.3 percent was set to mature in 2024 while 78.0 percent was slated to mature by 2030.
The financial watchdog said uncertainty remained over the overseas real estate markets, especially slump in the U.S. and European commercial real estate markets, as well as the U.S. interest rates.
The watchdog, however, noted that the overseas real estate investment by local financial firms were not large while the financial companies boasted robust loss-absorbing capacity. ■
