BANGKOK, 18 February 2013 The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has revealed three measures to tackle the strong baht, all aimed at encouraging baht holders to use the baht to buy more foreign correncies.
The BoT is reportedly in the process of authorising three measures to weaken the baht. The first measure is to lift the limit on the amount of investment that SMEs and individual investors can invest in foreign properties. Earlier SMEs and individual investors had to ask for authorisation from the BoT for any investment larger than 50 million US dollars.
The second measure is to allow those with loans in foreign currencies to buy and deposit foreign currencies in their accounts, in amounts no larger than the size of their loans.
The third measure is to lift the limit on the amount of money that may be transfered outside of the country, previously capped at 2,000 US dollars per transaction. The measure will allow transfers of funds of any amount according to the transferer’s need, subject to authorisation by the BoT.
The measures came after the Finance Ministry pressured on the BoT to urgently solve the problem of the strong baht. Commenting on the current situation, Assistant to the BoT Governor on Financial Markets, Chantawan Sucharitkul said that there would still be an influx of capital into the country in April, but the it would not be as strong as that in March.
As for capital control measures, Ms Chantawan said the BoT “does not consider a capital control measure appropriate at this point”, pointing out that the BoT has different levels of measures suitable for different levels of imbalances.
