BANGKOK, Jan 28 – Bank of Thailand (BoT) Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul said today that the latest market adjustment has resulted in a weakened Thai baht after two straight weeks of rapid appreciation.
He admitted that the movement of the Thai currency is fluctuating but the central bank is closing monitoring the situation to ensure that the Thai baht moves in tandem with other currencies in the market.
Mr Prasarn said the BoT is ready to discuss with the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) its seven-point proposal to help manufacturers who have been negatively affected by the appreciating Thai baht.
“In fact the central bank has taken action on some of the FTI’s proposals. We are ready to take into consideration exporters’ request to extend the one-year deadline for holding US dollars but a time frame is necessary, or it will be too risky” he said.
He urged exporters to rely more on local currencies in their international trade to alleviate the risk of currency fluctuation.
Mr Prasarn said the BoT’s close monitoring has not found any attacks on the Thai baht and the inflow of foreign funds is mostly to invest for the short term in the bond market.
