Asian Currencies Hit by Growth Slump
Daniel Shane
September 01, 2008 Anxieties over the global economy have led to a devaluing of several Asian currencies, as demand lessens for emerging market currencies.
The Filipino peso dropped 2.2 percent over this week to 45.310 per US dollar - its worst for a year as investors rushed to sell the currency.
The Taiwan dollar was also hit by a fourth weekly drop as the slowdown in the US and European economies led to doubts over demands for the country's exports.
Daniel Hui, a currency strategist at HSBC, told Bloomberg: "Taiwan will under-perform relative to the rest of the region as the global slowdown unfolds.
"The US dollar is rebounding because the outlook for the rest of the world is basically being downgraded."
The Singapore dollar also recorded a fourth weekly decline - of 3.5 percent - as the state's government cut growth and export forecasts, putting it at the bottom of the pile for most active Asian currencies.
Malasia's ringgit, the Indonesian rupiah, the Thai baht and the Vietnamese dong also all suffered losses in the foreign currency exchange market this week.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
