Asian currencies slumped this week, led by Singapore’s dollar, on concern slowing global growth will curb demand for the region’s assets.
Singapore’s currency posted its biggest weekly loss in a decade after the Straits Times newspaper cited Singaporean Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam as saying the economy is moving toward a slowdown and growth is unlikely to rebound “any time soon.”
Nine of the 10 most-active Asian currencies outside of Japan fell this week.
“Tharman’s dovish comments confirm expectations that the central bank won’t be seeking any further policy tightening,” said Emmanuel Ng, economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp in Singapore.
The Singapore dollar weakened as much as 2.3 percent this week to S$1.4014 against the US currency in Singapore, the biggest loss since the five days ended June 26, 1998, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The New Taiwan dollar had its biggest weekly loss in more than two years on speculation slowing global economic growth will curb demand for consumer electronics produced by the nation’s exporters.
The currency fell for a ninth day, the longest losing streak since July 2005, after a government report on Thursday showed shipments grew last month at less than half the pace forecast by economists. Taiwan’s GDP may expand 4.78 percent this year, the slowest since 2005, a statistics bureau forecast released in May said.
“The Taiwan dollar is finding it difficult to fight the strong US dollar trend that’s happening in the whole region,” said Philip Wee, a currency strategist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd in Singapore. “Europe and Japan are all showing negative growth numbers, and the Asian region is seeing declining GDP.”
The NT dollar fell 1.5 percent this week to NT$31.090 against the US currency, Taipei Forex Inc figures show.
Taiwan’s export growth slowed to 8 percent last month from 21.3 percent in June, the government reported. Economists in a Bloomberg News survey forecast overseas sales, which account for about half of the island’s GDP, would increase 17.1 percent.
The Philippine peso lost 0.3 percent this week to 44.335, Indonesia’s rupiah dropped 0.8 percent to 9,170 and Thailand’s baht declined 0.5 percent to 33.70. Vietnam’s dong advanced 1.2 percent this week to 16,550.
The ringgit fell 1.2 percent this week to 3.3015 against the US dollar, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The currency, which started the year at 3.3070, has declined for a sixth straight day, the longest run since October 2006.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary