The Indian rupee and the Philippine peso led a weekly advance among Asian currencies on speculation oil prices near the lowest in seven weeks will reduce demand for dollars from importers.
The rupee posted its best week in four months as exporters may have converted overseas earnings to guard against further currency gains. A stronger rupee erodes revenue from overseas shipments in local-currency terms. Crude oil in New York declined for a third week, helping lower India’s import costs.
The rupee gained 1.2 percent this week to 42.265 per US dollar in Mumbai, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It may strengthen to 42.10 next week, Rao said.
The Philippine peso rose 0.9 percent from last week to 44.07 in Manila, according to Tullett Prebon PLC.
The Indian currency rallied 1.5 percent on Wednesday, the biggest gain in more than a decade, on speculation the government will allow more overseas investment in the financial industry after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh survived a confidence vote in parliament the previous day.
South Korea’s won advanced this week on speculation the government bought the currency to help contain inflation.
The won has gained 3.8 percent this month, the best performance among the 16 most-active major currencies as South Korean Vice Finance Minister Kim Dong-soo said on Thursday that the government would monitor for “herd behavior” in the foreign-exchange market.
The won climbed 0.5 percent this week to 1,009.20 in Seoul, from 1,013.80 last week, Seoul Money Brokerage Services Ltd said. It dropped 0.2 percent on Friday.
Malaysia’s ringgit snapped a two-week advance as the central bank unexpectedly refrained from increasing interest rates yesterday.
The ringgit dropped 0.3 percent this week to 3.25, Bloomberg data showed.
Elsewhere, The New Taiwan dollar dropped 0.2 percent to NT$30.407 against the US currency this week, the Singapore dollar fell 0.4 percent to S$1.3588 and the Thai baht declined 0.3 percent to 33.42 per US dollar. Vietnam’s dong was unchanged at 16,795 versus a week ago.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
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