Thai Baht - the strongest Asia’s currency in 2019

Thai property is one of the most popular investment for foreigners in Asia due to numerous reasons such as having reasonable price and good quality comparing with other Asia countries. According to JRE development, an estimated 70,000 Japanese expats currently reside in Thailand with most being based in Bangkok and the country’s Eastern Seaboard. With increasing Japanese investment in Thailand, more expats from Japan are living in Thailand. At the same time, Thailand government is focusing on the development of tourism by expanding transportation network. With higher demand of tenement and premise, Thailand’s real estate market will have better yield return and capital gain.

On the other hand, the Thai baht has been the best performing currency in emerging Asia since 2018. On a year-on-year basis, it has roared more than 8.3% against the U.S. dollar in 2018, the best performer globally, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. In 2019, the Thai baht even reached a six-year high by climbing 8.53% against the U.S. dollar according to the Bank of Thailand. On 31/12/2019, Thai baht even reached the highest by 1 USD = 29.835THB. Comparing with the performance of New Taiwan Currency and Japanese Yen, Thai baht had the largest percentage of increase. Thai baht is the strongest Asia’s currency in 2019 without a doubt.

source: The Edge Markets

There are still some side effects brought by the outstanding performance of Thai baht in 2019 such as encumbering the development of exports and tourism. In order to slow down the growth of Thai baht, the Bank of Thailand has decided to cut interest rates to 0.25%-1%. The widely spread of COVID-19 affect the economic growth of Thailand for the first half of 2020 which at the same time is one of the reasons of cutting interest rate.

Although countries around the world are facing economic stagnation in the first half of 2020 because of the COVID-19, the development of Thailand will remain stable in the second half of 2020. Also, Thailand ranked sixth in the 2019 Global Health Security Index. Thailand is more able to avoid the effects bring by COVID-19 and recover from the economic stagnation comparing with other Asia countries.

Due to the outstanding performance of Thai baht in 2019, a lot of analysts evaluated that Thai baht will keep its prominent performance in 2020. Meanwhile, foreign direct investment (FDI) swarm into ASEAN which may boost the price of Thailand’s real estate market. There is foreseeable gain in investing Thai property with stable economic development and appreciation of Thai baht. Combining with the current situation of slowing down the growth of Thai baht, investors may consider investing Thai property when the price is relatively low because of the decelerated growth of Thai baht.