The rupiah led gains in Asia and had its biggest weekly rally in five months on signs Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo won Indonesia’s presidential race, while South Korea’s won and India’s rupee declined.
Widodo had about a 5 percentage point lead, according to unofficial counts from two survey companies that declared him the winner of the Wednesday vote, a projection disputed by his opponent, Prabowo Subianto. Official results are to be announced by July 22. Most Asian currencies declined on Friday after signs of financial distress in Portugal fueled demand for the US dollar.
“We can see a further rally after the final result, even if much of the expectation for Jokowi’s win has been priced in,” said David Sumual, chief economist at PT Bank Central Asia in Jakarta. “The focus will turn to the new Cabinet.”
The rupiah gained 2.5 percent this week to 11,590 per US dollar on Friday in Jakarta, the most since the five days ended Feb. 14, prices from local banks show.
In Taipei, the New Taiwan dollar weakened 0.2 percent against the greenback to US$29.990, amid concern over the financial situation in Portugal, where a leading shareholder of the country’s second-largest lender, Banco Espirito Santo, missed its debt payments.
The weakness of other regional currencies, including the won and the yuan, further encouraged traders to cut their NT dollar holdings, dealers said.
The won weakened 1 percent to 1,018.92 and the rupee dropped 0.3 percent to 59.9350. The Bloomberg JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index fell 0.1 percent on Friday and was little changed this week.
The Bank of Korea on Thursday reduced its expansion projection to 3.8 percent from 4 percent even as it held its benchmark rate at 2.5 percent. There is a possibility of a rate cut this quarter, Nomura Holdings Inc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc said in reports on Thursday.
The yuan was little changed at 6.2037 this week, China Foreign Exchange Trade System prices show. China is committed to reducing currency intervention as conditions allow, according to a joint statement with the US after the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing that ended on Thursday. US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called the pledge a “big change.”
Elsewhere in Asia, Thailand’s baht rose 0.7 percent from July 4 to 32.158 per US dollar and the Malaysian ringgit was steady at 3.1858. The Philippine peso weakened 0.2 percent to 43.552, while Vietnam’s dong gained 0.4 percent to 21,200.
YEN DOMINATES
The US dollar fell the most versus the yen in 13 weeks as the US Federal Reserve signaled willingness to keep borrowing costs at unprecedented lows even as the US labor market improves.
Japan’s currency climbed against most of its 16 major peers and US Treasuries gained as Portugal’s banking problem prompted demand for safer assets.
The US dollar fell versus most major counterparts after minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) meeting last month failed to provide additional insight on the pace of rate increases.
“Slightly dovish FOMC minutes was the first trigger,” said Masafumi Takada, a New York-based director at BNP Paribas SA. “Declining US yields as well as ongoing geopolitical risk aversion are putting pressure on dollar-yen.”
The US dollar fell 0.7 percent on the week to ¥101.30 in New York, the biggest drop since the period ended April 11. The greenback weakened 0.1 percent to US$1.3608 per euro. The yen rallied 0.6 percent to 137.90 per euro after appreciating to 137.50, the strongest since Feb. 6.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the greenback against 10 major counterparts, fell 0.1 percent to 1,006.89, its fourth drop in five weeks.
Meanwhile, the pound had its first weekly decline since May on signs Britain’s growth is struggling to keep up with economists’ estimates.
The pound declined 0.3 percent this week to US$1.7116 in London on Friday, after climbing to US$1.7180 on July 4, the highest level since October 2008. It weakened 0.4 percent to £0.7951 per euro.
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