Bangkok (VNA) – The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has made measures tocounteract the baht’s (THB) decline as the local currency hit a nine-month low.
To curb the local currency’s rapid retreat against thegreenback, the central bank decided to sell the US dollar to smooth out the THBvalue.
As of mid-July, THB, which was the second-best performingcurrency in Asia last year, depreciated around 2 percent to 33.26 THB to the dollar.
The bank’s data reported foreign reserves fell from 216billion USD (7.22 trillion baht) in March to 207 billion USD in June.
The BoT attributed the baht’s depreciation to tightercurrency policies in major economies, as well as trade conflicts between theUS, China, and the European Union.
Thailand’s GDP growth expanded to a five-year high of 4.8percent during the first quarter of 2018, higher than the 4 percent recorded inthe last quarter of the previous year.
The BoT’s Monetary Policy Committee raised this year’sforecast growth rate from 4.1 percent to 4.4 percent. -VNA