The government is not engaged in currency manipulation, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) reiterated yesterday, amid speculation that the sudden appreciation of the local currency was related to pressure from the US.
Speaking prior to a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan, Cho said the New Taiwan dollar has always been stable, that Taiwan was not a country that engaged in currency manipulation and that the central bank has always abided by the law in observing fluctuations in exchange rates.
Asked about central bank Governor Yang Chin-long’s (楊金龍) comment that there were signs of speculators seeking to disrupt the NT dollar, Cho said that such illegal market behavior would not be tolerated.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
He added that he had asked the central bank and financial institutions to impose strict checks on such behavior.
The NT dollar rose sharply on Friday and Monday, appreciating by NT$1.872 from NT$32.017 against the US dollar on Wednesday to close at NT$30.145 on Monday.
The local currency had hovered at about NT$32.5 to NT$33 from the beginning of this year to late last month before its sudden surge.
Photo: An Rong Xu, Bloomberg
The sharp gains, combined with the US dollar lagging behind most major currencies over the past two sessions, led to speculation that Asian countries, including Taiwan, were trading higher exchange rates for lower levies in response to US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
Taiwanese officials have been at pains to repeat that the NT dollar’s sudden appreciation had nothing to do with pressure from Washington, but the government has done little either rhetorically or in practice to call out Trump’s coercion on tariffs and trade.
Cho said he hoped that market mechanisms would stabilize exchange rates, and that seemed to be the trend yesterday.
The US dollar was trading at about NT$30.13 at noon yesterday after falling below the NT$30 threshold earlier in the morning. It closed at NT$30.280.
Taiwan had been listed by the US as a currency manipulator in 1988 and 1992, and it was included on the US Department of the Treasury’s currency “monitoring list” in its latest report in November last year, the sixth time in a row Taiwan has made the list.
The designation identifies major US trading partners “whose currency practices and macroeconomic policies merit close attention.”
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