SEOUL, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Foreign investors sold South Korean stocks for the seventh consecutive month due to lingering worry about economic slowdown, financial watchdog data showed Friday.

Foreigners dumped a net 2.83 trillion won (1.9 billion U.S. dollars) worth of local listed stocks in February, remaining net sellers since August last year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

Offshore investors were net sellers in the main bourse KOSPI, but they turned into net buyers in the smaller KOSDAQ market.

The foreign sell-off was attributable to concerns about economic downturn.

The country's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75 percent in February, after slashing it by the same percentage point in October and November last year, respectively.

The Bank of Korea (BOK) revised down this year's growth outlook for the South Korean economy by 0.4 percentage points to 1.5 percent in February compared to three months earlier.

Foreign holdings of local listed stocks totaled 704.1 trillion won (483.9 billion dollars) at the end of February, taking up 26.5 percent of the total market capitalization.

Overseas investors purchased a net 6.83 trillion won (4.7 billion dollars) worth of domestic listed bonds in February.

Given the maturing debts worth 1.16 trillion won (797 million dollars), the foreign net investment in the local bond market stood at 5.67 trillion won (3.9 billion dollars) last month.

The foreign ownership of domestic listed bonds amounted to 271.5 trillion won (186.6 billion dollars) at the end of February, accounting for 10.3 percent of the total listed bonds. Enditem

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