South Korea's central bank on Thursday announced on Tuesday that it decides to hold the call rate for February at a five-year high of 4.5 percent.

It has been the sixth consecutive month for the Bank of Korea ( BOK) to maintain the key rate at the level since September last year. The call rate refers to the interest charged on overnight inter-bank loans.

The rate frozen for February had been widely expected as recent economic statistics implies a further slowdown in the economy.

The central bank forecast in December that South Korea's economic increase will decelerate to 4.4 percent this year from 5 percent last year. Local analysts said the freezing of the key rate was an efforts to deal with the strong won, which gained 9 percent against the U.S. dollar last year, the tame inflationary pressure and a possible surge of real estate price.

Source: Xinhua