The Asset Management Association of Korea said Thursday that the target amount of funds within the country on Wednesday increased by W2.26 trillion to W301.21 trillion.

The amount is the combined total of all holdings of domestic and overseas stock and bond funds, money market funds, and private equity funds, exceeding the amount of fixed deposits in banks (W275 trillion as of November).

This year alone the country saw the value of fund investments increase by W66.6 trillion. A major reason behind the outstanding performance is brisk sale of overseas stock funds worth W41 trillion resulting from the government’s decision to impose no taxes on gains from selling overseas funds.

The number of fund accounts also increased six-fold from 3.58 million in late 2002 to 21.19 million in October of this year. This means that Korean households (16.42 million) have an average of 1.3 funds per home.

(englishnews@chosun.com )