India’s rupee led gains in Asian currencies, completing its best week in 12 years, on signs overseas funds are returning to buy local assets aided by cuts in borrowing costs by global central banks.
Seven of the 10 most-active currencies in Asia excluding the yen strengthened this week as the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index rose 1.2 percent, extending last week’s 6 percent advance.
The rupee climbed 3.8 percent to 47.66 per US dollar in Mumbai, from 49.4575 on Oct. 31, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That is the biggest weekly gain since March 1996. Thailand’s baht and the Philippine peso strengthened 0.3 percent to 34.96 and 48.81 respectively in the week.
The New Taiwan dollar gained for a second week, the longest winning streak in more than three months.
“It’s difficult to see further weakening in the Taiwan dollar,” said Daniel Soh, an economist at Forecast Pte in Singapore. “The cross-strait policy measures will provide some support to the currency, as this is positive to the economies on both sides.”
The NT dollar rose 0.5 percent to NT$32.824 against the dollar, from NT$33 on Oct. 31, according to Taipei Forex Inc.
The yen headed for weekly gains against the euro and the British pound on speculation global interest-rate cuts will make it less attractive to purchase overseas assets using funds from Japan.
The yen rose to ¥124.46 versus the euro in London from ¥125.30 at the end of last week. It climbed to ¥153.87 versus the pound, from ¥158.28 last week.
Indonesia’s rupiah reversed Friday’s losses to end the week stronger. The rupiah rose 0.7 percent to 10,900 a dollar, from 10,975 a week earlier, Bloomberg data show.
South Korea’s won declined 2.8 percent this week to 1,328.80 per dollar, taking this year’s loss to 30 percent, the worst performance among the 10 most-traded Asian currencies outside Japan.
Elsewhere, the Vietnamese dong dropped 0.9 percent this week to 16,984 against the US dollar after the central bank widened the daily trading band for the currency to 3 percent from 2 percent. The Malaysian ringgit weakened 0.2 percent to 3.5520.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
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