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SEOUL, April 3 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's foreign reserves fell last month as the foreign exchange authorities floated the U.S. dollar funds in the currency market amid the dollar's surge to the local currency, central bank data showed Friday.

Foreign reserves amounted to 400.21 billion U.S. dollars as of the end of March, marking the lowest in almost two years since May 2018, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It was down 8.96 billion dollars from a month earlier, posting the biggest monthly decline since November 2008.

The sharp fall came as the foreign exchange authorities sold the dollar funds in the currency market amid the local currency's drop versus the greenback.

The won/dollar exchange rate finished at 1,228.3 won per dollar Thursday. The rate peaked to 1,285.7 won on March 19.

The strong dollar reduced the conversion value of non-dollar assets such as the European single currency and the British pound.

The dollar index, which measures the dollar value versus six major peers, gained 0.7 percent last month.

The country's foreign currency reserves were composed of 357.6 billion dollars of securities, 31.72 billion dollars of deposits, 4.79 billion dollars of gold bullion, 3.32 billion dollars of special drawing rights (SDR) and 2.78 billion dollars of International Monetary Fund (IMF) positions.

South Korea was the world's ninth-largest holder of foreign reserves as of end-February, unchanged from the prior month.聽