Baht set to continue strengthening as Asian economies to benefit from China’s reopening

From Thai Enquirer

The Baht, which in October was trading around 38 to the US Dollar, has strengthened to 34 to the US$, and the currency is likely to continue to strengthen into 2023 as the Thai economy continues to recover and China’s reopening will help sustain recessionary fears from the west.

The Thai Baht has benefited from the surge in the domestic economy as Thailand opened its doors to foreign tourists on July 1^st, 2022.

The currency has benefited from the weakening US Dollar that has seen the US Federal Reserve starting to slow its interest rate hikes that it has undertaken aggressively during 2022.

“After being lackluster in the past 2 years, the Thai Baht looks set to outperform in Asia FX in 2023 as it receives a further bump in tourist arrivals due to reopening of China’s borders,” Heng Koon How, head of market strategy at United Overseas Bank (UOB) said in a note to clients.

“The expected return to a current account surplus of 2.8% (of GDP) this year is another added boost to the THB. Taken together, we see a limited pullback in THB to 35 to US$ in H1 2023 despite a challenging global macro backdrop before a stronger recovery to 34 to US$ in Q3 2023 and 33 to the US$ in Q4 2023.”

Continues at

https://www.thaienquirer.com/47303/thai-baht-likely-to-continue-to-strengthen-as-asian-economies-could-benefit-from-chinas-reopening/