Asian currencies fell last week, led by the South Korean won and the Indonesian rupiah, on speculation China will take more steps to curb inflation after economic growth accelerated to a three-year high.
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index declined 0.7 percent last week, the biggest drop in eight months, on concern monetary tightening in China will damp a recovery in global trade. A proposal by President Barack Obama to reduce risk-taking by US financial institutions cooled demand for emerging-market assets, dragging regional stocks lower.
“The China bubble risk is a big source of fear for financial markets, particularly investors in risky assets around the world,” said Tim Condon, head of Asia research at ING Groep NV in Singapore. “Lower stocks in the US are going to mean knee-jerk selling in Asia and that is going to show up in a higher dollar against Asia ex-Japan currencies.”
The won fell 2.4 percent over the last five days to 1,150.85 per dollar in Seoul, Bloomberg data showed. Indonesia’s rupiah declined 1.7 percent to 9,359 and Malaysia’s ringgit dropped 1.7 percent to 3.3997.
The ringgit posted the biggest weekly drop since February and the rupiah had its steepest decline in seven months. The yuan fell 0.4 percent to 6.6315 per dollar, reflecting traders’ bets for a 2.9 percent gain in the currency in a year.
Elsewhere in Asian currency trading, Thailand’s baht weakened 0.4 percent last week to 32.99 and the Philippine peso declined 0.8 percent to 46.19.
BALLPARKS TARGETED: To further reduce the use of plastic cups, the ministry is considering subsidizing the use of reusable cups at professional baseball games Beverage shops are to be banned from serving drinks in single-use plastic cups in September, the Ministry of Environment said yesterday, adding that it is also considering subsidizing the use of reusable cups at professional baseball games and other enclosed venues. Beverage shops in 21 cities and counties have already stopped using single-use takeaway plastic cups since the Parties Subject to and Means for Single-use Takeaway Beverage Cups Restrictions (一次用飲料杯限制使用對象及實施方式) were implemented on July 1, 2022, the ministry said in a statement. Aside from banning single-use plastic cups, the rules also require shops to provide reusable cups for customers to borrow and
Taiwanese athletes yesterday and on Saturday edged closer to winning a medal in a strong showing in the first two days of the Paris Olympics. Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) defeated Belgium’s Lianne Tan in the group stage of the women’s singles yesterday. Although Tai has not played in any professional competitions in the past three months due to injuries and Olympic preparations, the Taiwanese dispatched Tan in a swift 38 minutes, winning 21-15, 21-14. It was Tai’s third consecutive career victory over Tan. The 30-year-old Taiwanese was next to play longtime friend and rival, Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon, in the group stage. Per Olympic
GOING SUPER: The government granted four Taiwanese teams free access to use Taipei-1, a supercomputer built by Nvidia, to help develop AI technologies and products Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) is to set up a research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan with research teams targeting several advanced technologies, including silicon photonics, artificial intelligence (AI) and heterogeneous integration, a Ministry of Economic Affairs official said on Saturday. An AMD application for the ministry’s A+ global R&D and innovation partnership program was approved this month, granting a more than 30 percent subsidy, or NT$3.31 billion (US$100.82 million), of the company’s total NT$8.64 billion investment, the ministry’s Web site showed. AMD, a US-based central processing unit (CPU) producer and AI chip giant, would invest NT$5.33 billion, while 50 percent
NOT INTIMIDATED: A Bosnia and Herzegovina lawmaker said Beijing contacted her party president to stop her from going, but that only made her more determined Chinese diplomats are pressuring lawmakers from at least six countries not to attend a China-focused summit in Taiwan, participants said. Politicians in Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and one other Asian country that declined to be named, say they are receiving texts, calls and urgent requests for meetings that would conflict with their plans to travel to Taipei, in what they describe as efforts to isolate Taiwan. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) summit officially begins tomorrow. The alliance is a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing. The Associated Press spoke