South Korea has been placed on a U.S. list of countries to be closely monitored for their foreign exchange policies.

The U.S. Department of Treasury on Friday released its foreign exchange policy report that put South Korea, Germany and China on its seven-nation watch list. 

South Korea was kept on the list due to its trade surplus of 37 billion dollars and for previously triggering multiple flags in the last report. 

Countries are put on the monitoring list according to their trade and current account indications as well as their currency market intervention track records.

The Treasury department said that it estimates that Korean authorities sold foreign exchange at increasing amounts throughout the first three quarters of 2022 in line with increasingly rapid depreciation of the won against the U.S. dollar over the course of the year.