The South Korean central bank said it would invest in a broader range of assets in order to earn maximum profit from its big foreign-exchange holdings. But bank officials denied that they were eager to change the proportion of reserves held in dollars.

The Bank of Korea alarmed world markets last month by saying it wanted to "diversify" its reserves, which means the bank would start selling dollars. Raising concern that the central bank and others in Asia would dump the currency resulted in its decline on Feb. 22.

In a statement released by the Bank of Korea it was not specified what currencies or instruments would be used on its way to increase the return on its massive foreign-exchange reserves, the fourth-largest in the world. The bank also said it would extend the number of staff managing the reserves by more than 50%.

"We have absolutely no plans to reduce our proportion of dollar holdings," said Choo Heung Sik, head of the Bank of Korea’s reserve-management team, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "The market shouldn’t misinterpret today’s announcement, like it did last month."

Along with investing new funds in products that bring higher returns, the central bank aims at increasing the number of staff managing the country’s reserves to more than 10conmpared with 66 currently. It will draw outsiders and find out ways to raise compensation for staff that manage reserves.