Thailand unexpectedly raised its benchmark interest rate for the third time this year, signaling it views inflation as a bigger threat than slowing growth.
The Bank of Thailand increased the one-day bond repurchase rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 2 percent after leaving it unchanged at the previous meeting, it said yesterday in Bangkok.
Overall inflation was unchanged at 2.8 percent last month, the Commerce Ministry said yesterday. Core inflation index, which excludes fresh food and fuel prices, rose 1.1 percent last month from a year earlier, the ministry said. Full-year inflation is expected at 3.3 percent, it added.
“This is a good opportunity for the central bank to raise the key rate as the baht pressure has subsided,” said Benjarong Suwankiri, an economist at TMB Bank PCL in Bangkok. “There are lots of factors that may boost price pressures. If they don’t do it now, they will find it a lot harder to speed up raising the rate next year when economic growth will be slower than this year.”
Thailand’s benchmark stock index rose 1.3 percent as of 4:20pm in Bangkok. The Thai baht climbed 0.5 percent to 30.05 baht per US dollar as of 5:52pm, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The Thai currency has declined more than 1.5 percent since reaching a 13-year high of 29.46 baht per US dollar on Nov. 10, as concern European nations will struggle to pay their debt encouraged investors to seek safety in the dollar, cutting demand for emerging-market assets.
Still, the baht’s 10.8 percent increase this year is the biggest gain in Asia, prompting companies including General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Siam Cement PCL to say the baht’s strength is a threat to exports. Thailand is an exporter of cars, rice and electronics.
Bank of Thailand Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul said last month capital inflows remain “a phenomenon that we have to be careful of.”
The Thai central bank expects economic growth to accelerate to as much as 8 percent this year, the fastest pace in 15 years, before slowing to between 3 percent and 5 percent next year.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last