South Korea's central bank chief left for Germany on Wednesday to discuss pending economic issues with his counterparts from the world's major economies, the Bank of Korea said.

BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol is scheduled to attend the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meetings in Baden-Baden, a town in southwestern Germany, on Friday and Saturday, according to the central bank.

The trip comes amid a possible rate hike in the US Federal Reserve this week.

In December, the US Federal Reserve raised its key rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a target range of 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent. The Fed is widely expected to raise the rate three more times throughout 2017.

The trip will take Lee to the northwestern Swiss city of Basel for a regular meeting of the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland this weekend.

Lee is set to return home next Tuesday.

The BIS is an international financial institution that serves as a bank for central banks, providing banking services only to central banks. It currently has 60 member central banks and monetary authorities, including those of Britain, France and the United States. (Yonhap)