Asian currencies dropped this week, led by Malaysia’s ringgit and South Korea’s won, on speculation the US Federal Reserve will not extend monetary easing and regional central banks would intervene to curb appreciation.
Policymakers should be ready to vary the pace of US$85 billion a month of debt buying, which has boosted the supply of US dollars and spurred inflows to emerging markets, according to minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s Jan. 29 and 30 meeting released on Wednesday.
The Dollar Index rallied 0.8 percent that day and 0.5 percent the next. Central bank officials in South Korea and the Philippines said this week they would act to curb currency swings.
The New Taiwan dollar strengthened 0.3 percent this week to NT$29.658 against the greenback on Friday, according to prices from Taipei Forex Inc.
The NT dollar is the worst performer this year after the Japanese yen among 11 widely traded Asian currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
The Taipei foreign exchange market was open yesterday, a regular workday in compensation for an extra holiday during the Lunar New Year holiday. The NT dollar closed unchanged at NT$29.658 after fluctuating in a narrow range in thin trade, dealers said.
Turnover fell to just around US$200 million at the end of session as many foreign traders were away on the weekend, while local investors lacked any leads as other regional markets were closed.
In a bid to slow down the pace of the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation, the central bank again bought into the US dollar, which helped the greenback recoup its early losses by the end of the session, dealers added.
In addition, local traders had no cues from other regional markets, which were all closed for the weekend, so local trade appeared very quiet, dealers said.
The ringgit dropped 0.8 percent this week to 3.1015 per US dollar in Kuala Lumpur, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The won fell 0.6 percent to 1,084.68, Indonesia’s rupiah declined 0.4 percent to 9,709 and the Philippine peso weakened 0.2 percent to 40.685.
The Malaysian currency had its first weekly decline in three after a composite index based on a survey of purchasing managers in services and manufacturing in the 17-nation eurozone decreased to 47.3 this month from 48.6 last month, data from London-based Markit Economics showed on Thursday.
Elsewhere in the region, China’s yuan lost 0.04 percent to 6.2351, Vietnam’s dong dropped 0.2 percent to 20,885, Thailand’s baht was steady at 29.85 and India’s rupee rose 0.1 percent to 54.1850.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained