South Korea has been exposed to the rare sale of dollars, and traders suspect Japan and Korea have joined forces to intervene in the exchange

On 31 July, market sources revealed that the Korean foreign exchange authorities had carried out a rare United States dollar selling intervention on Thursday, pushing the Korean Won to nine months' high. This action by the Republic of Korea coincides with Japan ' s intervention on Thursday to buy and sell Japanese yen on the New York market, which pulls it back from a low point of 40 years. The Korean Won appreciated by 2 per cent against the United States dollar on Thursday to 1418.0 dollars, the strongest since 20 October last year. Last month, the Korean Won touched the 17-year low of 1561.50, which has risen by more than 8 per cent this month and is expected to produce the largest single-month increase since March 2009. A foreign exchange official from the Korean Ministry of Finance refused to confirm the intervention. A Korean foreign exchange dealer indicated that the market suspected a joint intervention by the Republic of Korea and Japan, which had previously indicated close coordination. On 2 July, the Deputy Minister of Finance of the Republic of Korea stated at a press conference that Seoul was maintaining close communication with Japan and other major allies on foreign exchange issues. Japan ' s highest foreign exchange official subsequently followed up on 7 July, stating that Tokyo was in close communication with foreign exchange officials in Seoul on the grounds that the financial markets of the two countries sometimes showed similar fluctuations. Kim Xian