South Korean stocks opened lower Friday, tracking an overnight fall on Wall Street amid surging global inflation woes and rising interest rates.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) declined 21.6 points, or 0.75 percent, to 2,841.08 points in the first 15 minutes of trading.  On Thursday (local time), the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.9 percent, the broad-based S&P 500 went down 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, decreased 0.89 percent.

In Seoul, most large-cap shares traded lower.

Top cap Samsung Electronics decreased 1.18 percent, and No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix went down 2.8 percent.

Internet portal operator Naver inched down 0.15 percent, leading chemical firm LG Chem lost 1.58 percent and Kakao, operator of the country's most-used messenger Kakao Talk, fell 0.76 percent.

The local currency was trading at 1,193.1 won against the US dollar, down 0.7 won from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)