Asian currencies slumped this week, with India’s rupee and Malaysia’s ringgit sliding the most since the 1990s, as investors dumped emerging-market assets on concern Europe’s debt crisis will derail the global economic recovery.
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index dropped the most since February last year even as reports showed economic growth accelerated in Singapore and Taiwan. Share markets added to losses on Friday after US data cast doubt on the strength of a recovery in the world’s largest economy. Governments in Europe are cutting spending and raising taxes as they struggle to reduce budget deficits that are straining finances.
The New Taiwan dollar had a weekly decline on repeated intervention by the central bank to support exports as Europe’s debt crisis raised concern the global economic recovery will falter.
The NT dollar dropped 0.2 percent to NT$32.250 against its US counterpart at the close on Friday, the weakest level this year, according to Taipei Forex Inc. The currency declined beyond the NT$32 level this week for the first time since March.
The rupee fell 3.6 percent to 46.92 in Mumbai, the biggest weekly loss since October 1995, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The ringgit declined 3.5 percent to 3.3165, its worst performance since the Asian financial crisis in 1998. The Philippine peso dropped 3.9 percent to 46.50, the most in nearly a decade.
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
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