South Korea’s money supply rose for the seventh consecutive month in December amid tightening policy, central bank data showed Friday.

The country’s M2, a key gauge of the money supply, stood at 3,925.4 trillion won (US$2.95 trillion) in December, up 0.8 percent from a month earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The M2 is a measure of the money supply that counts cash, demand deposits and other easily convertible financial instruments.

The central bank has been implementing its restrictive mode, as it delivered seven consecutive hikes in borrowing costs from April 2022 to January 2023 to tame soaring inflation in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Last month, the BOK held its key interest rate steady at 3.5 percent for the eighth straight time amid a slowdown in growth and moderating inflation.

Source: Yonhap News Agency