The won led losses in Asian currencies this week after the Bank of Korea signaled its concern that economic growth is slowing amid speculation Japan will add to measures that weaken the yen.
South Korea’s currency had its biggest weekly decline in six weeks after the central bank left interest rates on Thursday and officials said the value of the yen, which has lost 9.8 percent against the US dollar this year, poses a threat to the economy.
“A number of factors are impacting the won: The first is the hit to Korean sentiment on the back of ongoing yen weakness and the second factor is the possibility of a rate cut spooking the markets,” Barclays PLC strategist Nick Verdi said in Singapore.
The won fell 1.8 percent this week to 1,110.95 per US dollar in Seoul, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Malaysia’s ringgit declined 0.8 percent to 3.1304 and Indonesia’s rupiah dropped 0.2 percent to 9,705.
In Taipei, the New Taiwan dollar rose 0.1 percent on Friday to NT$29.762 against its US counterpart, paring its weekly loss to 0.2 percent as exporters shifted to the buy side for the currency after the unit’s decline a day earlier to take advantage of a more favorable exchange rate, dealers said. It touched NT$29.81 on Monday, the weakest since Sept. 10 last year.
The central bank intervened again to prop up the greenback, helping the currency recoup some of its earlier losses in a bid to slow the pace of the NT dollar’s appreciation and boost the country’s global competitiveness, the dealers said.
Traders forecast that the central bank will continue its efforts to keep the Taiwan dollar cheaper, on expectations that the Bank of Japan will keep pumping funds into the market to lower the value of the yen, which could increase a currency depreciation competition in the region, the dealers said.
Concerns over a regional currency depreciation war have been running deeper, in particular after the new appointments to the Japanese central bank.
Elsewhere in Asia, the Philippine peso rose 0.2 percent to 40.607 and China’s yuan was steady this week at 6.2135 against the greenback, Bloomberg figures show. India’s rupee climbed 0.5 percent to 54.0250 and Thailand’s baht rose 0.6 percent to 29.53.
The Bloomberg JPMorgan-Asian Dollar Index lost 0.1 percent in the past five days, the most since the period through Feb. 8.
The US dollar halted a five-week rally against the euro that was backed by signals of a strengthening economy, as bullish momentum waned and a report on Friday showed that this month’s consumer sentiment was trailing forecasts.
The pound climbed the most since June against the US dollar this week as Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said policymakers are not trying to talk it down.
Sterling strengthened the most against the euro since the week ended on Feb. 8.
The pound advanced 1.3 percent in the week to US$1.5124 as of 5:03pm London time on Friday. It dropped to US$1.4832 on March 12, the weakest level since June 2010. Sterling strengthened 0.9 percent to £86.34 per euro.
The pound has dropped 5.3 percent this year, the second-worst performer after the yen among 10 developed market currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes.
The US dollar depreciated 0.6 percent this week to US$1.3067 per euro in New York, touching the weakest level since Dec. 10 last year. The greenback fell 0.8 percent to ¥95.28, as the yen increased 0.2 percent to ¥124.58 per euro.
The Australian dollar was the biggest winner and Brazil’s real the biggest loser among the US dollar’s 16 most-traded counterparts this week.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”