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'Ringgit performs better than other countries despite power transition'

The ringgit's performance against the US dollar is among the best vis-a-vis the world's major currencies despite the recent transfer of power and weak external factors, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

He pointed out that since end-2017, the ringgit's value versus the greenback had only slid 2.2 percent as of Sept 11.

This, he added, was far better compared with foreign currencies such as the Australian dollar, Indonesian rupiah, Chinese yuan, South Korean won and Singapore dollar, which weakened by 9.0 percent, 9.8 percent, 5.6 percent, 5.7 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively, against the US dollar during the same period.

“The relative strength of the ringgit compared with most of the world's major currencies proves the confidence of domestic and international investors in Malaysia.

“The Pakatan Harapan government is very confident the ringgit's value will keep on improving in the medium term after the debt issues and BN scandals such as 1MDB are resolved,” he said in a statement today.

Lim also criticised former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak's statement in a Facebook post today that the ringgit had not gone up in tandem with the rise in global oil prices.

The claim was baseless because the ringgit's value was not solely determined by crude oil prices, he said.

“He (Najib) deliberately failed to take into account important factors such as the US interest rate hikes, financial crises affecting emerging markets and global economic uncertainties created by the US-China 'trade war',” he added.

--Bernama

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