South Korea's foreign reserves fell last month as the U.S. dollar appreciates, which was caused by expectations for the early end of quantitative easing reduced the conversion value of non-dollar assets, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Foreign reserves were 328.1 billion U.S. dollars as of the end of May, down from 328.8 billion dollars in the prior month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The BOK attributed the fall to a slide in the conversion value of non-dollar assets such as the European single currency and the British pound. The euro and the pound depreciated 0.4 percent and 1.7 percent each versus the dollar, and the Japanese yen declined 3.1 percent to the dollar last month.

Expectations spread over the earlier-than-expected shutdown of the bond purchasing program by the U.S. Federal Reserve, causing the ascent of the dollar to other currencies.

As of the end of April, South Korea was the world's seventh- largest holder of foreign reserves following China, Japan, Russia, Switzerland, China's Taiwan and Brazil.

The reserves in South Korea stayed above the 300-billion-dollar mark since April 2011 when it topped the level for the first time in the country's history. The reserves hit a record high of 328.91 billion dollars in January.

The foreign reserves consisted of 299.81 billion dollars of securities, 17.57 billion dollars of deposits, 4.79 billion dollars of gold bullion, 3.41 billion dollars of special drawing rights (SDR) and 2.51 billion dollars of International Monetary Fund (IMF) positions. Endi

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