SEOUL-- The Bank of Korea (BOK) said Friday it sold a net US$7.14 billion in the third quarter to help ease fluctuations in the foreign exchange market.

The third-quarter net sale of U.S. dollar sharply rose compared with the second quarter when the central bank's selling and buying of the greenback remained on par, according to data uploaded on the central bank's homepage.

The BOK began releasing such data in the third quarter of 2019 to help boost the transparency of its market stabilization steps.

A BOK official said market smoothing operations in the third quarter came as the Korean currency weakened against the U.S. dollar.

In the third quarter, the Korean won fell 4.9 percent per the dollar. The local currency has declined 8.3 percent against the greenback so far this year.

Source: Yonhap News Agency