There is always competitive tension between Asia’s export giants — and at the moment, it is the won’s surge that has people talking.
Analysts at Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) in Taipei concluded that policymakers in Seoul have lost their grip on the South Korean currency, according to a note dated yesterday, after the won strengthened past 1,100 per US dollar for the first time in a year.
The currency is also trading at a 12-month high versus the New Taiwan dollar. The Yuanta strategists are monitoring the correlation between the Asian exchange rates and keeping a close eye out for any signs of a reaction from Taiwan’s central bank, they wrote.
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday closed at NT$30.101 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, up NT$0.057 from the previous session, while the Korean won rose 0.3 percent to 1,097.55 per US dollar in Seoul.
The won has soared almost 4 percent against the US dollar in the past three months, more than any other major currency, spurring a Korean central bank official to say on Friday that the won has appreciated “fast in a short time” and that the foreign-exchange authority is closely monitoring markets.
By contrast, Taiwan’s currency has held close to 30 per US dollar since April.
Others have been looking at how South Korea’s interest-rate trajectory might influence Taiwan’s. Barclays PLC expects Taiwan to make a moderate increase in borrowing costs in the second quarter of next year, partly because other central banks, including the Bank of Korea, are getting more hawkish, economist Angela Hsieh (謝涵涵) said by telephone yesterday.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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