Asian currencies fell for a second week, led by South Korea’s won and Indonesia’s rupiah, after US jobs data fueled speculation the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by the end of June.
A gauge of US dollar strength climbed 1.2 percent this week after a March 6 report showed the US unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in almost seven years. While monetary policy is set to tighten in the world’s largest economy, central banks across most of Asia are loosening, with South Korea and Thailand having both lowered borrowing costs this week.
“It wasn’t an ideal week for Asian currencies,” said Nizam Idris, head of foreign-exchange and fixed-income strategy at Macquarie Bank Ltd in Singapore.
The Fed “could take another step towards hiking interest rates at the March 18 policy meeting,” he said.
The won slumped 2.7 percent this week, its biggest loss since 2011, prices compiled by Bloomberg show.
The US dollar rose against the New Taiwan dollar on Friday, gaining NT$0.040 to close at NT$31.710 as traders in Taiwan were motivated by institutional selling in the local bourse to trim their earlier gains in the local currency and vault the greenback into positive territory by the close, dealers said.
The central bank’s intervention also helped the US dollar in the late trading session to offset selling by Taiwanese exporters earlier in the session, the dealers said.
The rupiah fell 1.7 percent, the most in seven months, and Malaysia’s ringgit dropped 1 percent. The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the region’s 10 most-traded currencies excluding the yen, slid this week to its lowest level since July 2010.
The won sank to a 20-month low on Thursday as the Bank of Korea unexpectedly cut its seven-day repurchase rate to a record 1.75 percent.
Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol said policymakers had “decided to act preemptively” after inflation slowed to the least since 1999 in February and exports fell the most in two years.
Thailand’s baht declined 0.8 percent this week, it biggest drop in five months. The Bank of Thailand lowered benchmark borrowing costs on Wednesday for the first time in a year, joining a global wave of monetary easing after the Southeast Asian economy grew at its slowest pace in three years.
In Indonesia, the rupiah slid on Wednesday to its lowest level since 1998 after the central bank signaled that it will tolerate further currency weakness.
The offshore yuan traded in Hong Kong strengthened 0.2 percent this week as comments by Chinese leaders attending an annual meeting of the nation’s legislature quelled speculation that depreciation would be used to support the economy.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA
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