❗Let's close the gap: We still need your help to raise $40,000 by April 1. Donate now

Asian currencies take a hit

Scott Tong Sep 15, 2008
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Asian currencies take a hit

Scott Tong Sep 15, 2008
HTML EMBED:
COPY

TEXT OF STORY

Stacey Vanek Smith: The dollar is way down today, as you can imagine. Asian currencies have taken a hit as well. That volatility probably won’t end anytime soon, as Scott Tong reports.


Scott Tong: The Philippine peso sits at its lowest level of the year against the dollar. India’s rupiah sits at two-year low. In Russia and Korea, the drops are so severe that governments have intervened to stabilize exchange rates. These are the emerging markets that hopeful economists thought could ride out the global storm. But the storm gets worse by the day, says David Cohen. He’s with Action Economics in Singapore.

David Cohen: There’s the fear that with the U.S. and Europe and Japan slowing more severely that this is finally going to pull down some of the Asian exporting economies with it.

There may not be enough buyers in the developed world for all those Asian exports. A positive counterweight is China. It’s still growing at 8 or 9 percent, still importing Korean computer chips and Japanese bulldozers. But these days, the prevailing view among currency traders is to go conservative and retreat at least a bit from emerging markets.

In Shanghai, I’m Scott Tong for Marketplace.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.