South Korea’s ETF market now world's third largest with daily trading volume of 3.17 trillion won

South Korea's exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted an average daily trading volume of 3.17 trillion won from Jan. 1 to Aug. 6 this year, soaring 97 times from 32.7 billion won logged in 2002, to make it the third-largest in the world, after the US and China.

South Korea's net assets of domestic ETFs also surged to 61.86 trillion won as of end-June this year, jumping 180 times from its net value in 2002, to make it the 11th-biggest market in asset value.

The number of funds available in South Korea’s ETF market surpassing 500 for the first time, marking a quantum leap from the four products it had when it began operations 19 years ago.

Korea Exchange attributed the market’s rapid growth to diversified ETF goods rolled out by local asset management firms.

The ETF market was able to contribute to the Korean capital market’s quantitative growth and qualitative improvement by taking advantage of the low cost and high transparency of the products.