NT$ climbs on rising reserves, better exports

A central bank report showing Taiwan's foreign-exchange reserves climbed for a 12th month in October helped support the local currency, which slumped in each of the last three weeks as signs a global economic recovery was losing traction damped demand for emerging-market assets. Exports had the smallest decline in more than a year in October, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg before trade data next week.

“There're more people selling U.S. dollars,” said Tarsicio Tong, a currency trader at Union Bank of Taiwan. “Foreign-exchange reserves rose, which means there were fund inflows and the value of the Taiwan dollar will rise.”

The local dollar climbed 0.1 percent this week to NT$32.509 against its U.S. counterpart as of the 4 p.m. close, according to Taipei Forex Inc.

Taiwan's foreign-exchange reserves, the world's fourth largest, rose 2.7 percent to US$341.2 billion last month, the central bank reported late Thursday. A Nov. 9 government report is forecast to show exports fell 7.2 percent from a year earlier in October, the least in 13 months, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Overseas investors bought US$10.8 billion more Taiwan shares than they sold this year through Thursday, helping lift the TAIEX stock index 63 percent and the local currency 1 percent. Taiwan's economy may return to growth in the October-to December period after contracting for five straight quarters, the statistics bureau said in August.

Taiwan's 10-year government bonds were little changed.

The yield on the 1.375 percent bond maturing September 2019 was 1.43 percent, according to Gretai Securities Market, Taiwan's biggest exchange for bonds. Its price fell 0.0084, or NT$8.4 per NT$100,000 face amount, to 99.5203.

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