South Korea's central bank said Sunday that the face value of damaged banknotes and coins that were destroyed rose 6.8 percent in the first half of the year from six months earlier.

The face value of the damaged banknotes and coins exchanged at local banks, including the Bank of Korea, came to 1.707 trillion won (US$1.5 billion), compared with 1.59 trillion won in the second half of 2016.

The central bank said it spent 30.4 billion won on replacing the damaged banknotes and coins with new bills and coins.

It said some of the damage was caused by fire. (Yonhap)

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