The South Korean won gave up gains to post its weakest close in over two weeks on Friday as unrelenting worries about the global recession's impact on the export-driven economy had investors back to seeking safer assets. Market players hope for measures from a weekend G20 meeting in Washington to check a worldwide economic downturn, but they were not so confident for the meeting after fresh evidence of a global recession, analysts said.
Data showed capital spending in China, South Korea's top export market, was slightly lower than expected during October, consistent with weakness seen in a slew of data this week as economies slide into slowdown. The won is expected to fall further, probably to 1,500 per dollar, on persistent fears of a slowdown in Asia's fourth-largest economy and as the threat of corporate defaults in the country looms, analysts said.
The South Korean currency was quoted at 1,399.8/0.1 versus the dollar as, compared with Thursday's domestic close of 1,391.5. Earlier, it gained as much as 1.4 percent to 1,371.8. Investors are keeping an eye on Washington where leaders of the Group of 20 countries are due to meet to seek solutions to the world's biggest financial crisis in decades that has hit economic growth around the world.