Asian currencies declined this week, led by the biggest five-day drop in Indonesia’s rupiah this year, as concern that Greece will default on its debt reduced demand for emerging-market assets.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index of regional stocks fell to its lowest level in almost three months as overseas investors sold US$1.5 billion more equities than they bought this week in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, exchange data showed.
“The main driver for the decline in Asian currencies has been the unfolding European debt crisis,” said Mirza Baig, a Singapore-based currency strategist at Deutsche Bank AG.
The rupiah slid 0.9 percent this week to 8,596 against the US dollar in Jakarta on Friday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The New Taiwan dollar weakened 0.6 percent to NT$29.000 against its US counterpart, its biggest weekly loss since February, Taipei Forex Inc data showed. It reached NT$29.005 on Friday, the lowest level in three weeks.
Malaysia’s ringgit lost 0.4 percent to 3.0315 and the Philippine peso weakened 0.7 percent to 43.60.
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the region’s 10 most-active currencies excluding the yen, fell 0.1 percent this week and touched 117.85 on Friday, the lowest level since May 26.
“Concern about global growth and the euro debt issue is all coming together and weighing on investors’ minds,” said Prakriti Sofat, an economist at Barclays Capital in Singapore.
The Thai baht touched its weakest level in more than three months on concern elections scheduled for July 3 would spark protests. The vote will pit Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrat party against the Pheu Thai party led by Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.
The baht dropped 0.6 percent to 30.57 per US dollar this week and reached 30.66 on Friday, the lowest level since Feb. 28.
Elsewhere, the South Korean won rose 0.2 percent to 1,081.50 against the US dollar this week, the Singaporean dollar dropped 0.2 percent to US$1.2346 and the Indian rupee declined 0.3 percent to 44.87 per US dollar, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese government bonds had the biggest weekly advance in three months, with 10-year yields reaching a one-week low on Friday.
“Taiwan’s government bonds had a volatile week, as stocks slumped and investors fled to safety,” said James Wang, a fixed-income trader at Yuanta Securities Co in Taipei.
The yield on the 1.375 percent notes due March 2021, the most-traded security, dropped 5 basis points this week to 1.48 percent on Friday, according to GRETAI Securities Market.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day