South Korea’s won slumped to a four-year low on speculation that intervention won’t halt the currency’s slide.
The Philippine peso fell this week after the government lowered its economic growth forecast. The NT dollar declined 0.1 percent to NT$31.370.
The won dropped as much as 0.8 percent yesterday to 1,063 against the US dollar, the weakest since December 2004, as refiners bought the US currency to import oil and overseas investors sold local stocks.
The won had rallied 0.6 percent before the slide on purchases by the central bank, said Sam Hong, a Seoul-based currency trader at Shinhan Bank, a unit of South Korea’s second-biggest financial group.
“The government’s action is not strong enough to stop the won’s slide,” said Lee Yoon-jin, a currency dealer at state-run Korea Development Bank in Seoul. “There have been a lot of purchases of the dollar from the local energy companies.”
The won slid 0.7 percent to 1,062.5 per dollar yesterday in Seoul, after touching a high of 1,048, Seoul Money Brokerage Services Ltd said.
It dropped 4.7 percent this month, the biggest decline among Asia’s 10 most-active currencies, excluding the yen.
The peso fell 0.2 percent to 45.65 per dollar in Manila yesterday, the Bankers Association of the Philippines said, extending the currency’s losses this week to 0.3 percent.
The peso fell for a fourth week and reached the lowest level in more than a month on concern that demand for the nation’s exports from its biggest market in the US will decrease.
The Indonesian rupiah snapped a two-week decline on speculation overseas investors are buying the nation’s assets as stocks rise and the government issues Islamic bonds.
The currency completed its best week in more than a month on speculation the central bank is seeking a stronger currency to help temper inflation.
Foreign investors bought more Indonesian stocks than they sold in two of the three trading days until Thursday.
The currency rose 0.3 percent to 9,140 yesterday in Jakarta.
Singapore’s dollar had its best week in two months as the US dollar weakened against the euro and the yen, which are part of the trade-weighted basket managed by the Southeast Asian nation’s central bank.
The Singapore dollar rose 0.6 percent this week.
Elsewhere, the Malaysian ringgit advanced 0.2 percent to 3.3400 a dollar from 3.3480 last week, while the Thai baht fell 0.3 percent to 33.93 and Vietnam’s dong was at 16,595 per dollar.
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