Korean won headed for the best week since September as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s pledge to cut stimulus in “measured steps” increased demand for emerging-market assets.

The currency was supported also by data from China, South Korea’s largest overseas market, which showed exports increased 10.6 percent from a year earlier in January, compared with the 0.1 percent gain projected in a Bloomberg News survey.

The Bloomberg JP Morgan Asia Dollar Index (ADXY), which tracks the region’s 10 most active currencies outside Japan, was set for a second weekly advance.

“The won has come back strongly this month, aided by the more settled mood in emerging markets,” said Sean Callow, a Sydney-based currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. “A calmer global environment has dovetailed with the won’s strong fundamentals of a large current-account surplus.”

The Fed last month said it will cut its monthly bond purchases by $10 billion to $65 billion, while Yellen said on Feb. 11 that the recovery in the U.S. labor market is far from complete.

The Bank of Korea held its benchmark rate at 2.5 percent last week while the nation’s current-account surplus widened to a record $70.73 billion in 2013, the central bank reported last month. (Bloomberg)