KUALA LUMPUR, March 30 — Putrajaya has no intention to fix the ringgit’s value to counter its current depreciation, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Chua Tee Yong said today.
Saying that existing circumstances were different from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Chua said the federal government will not implement the measure employed to stabilise the ringgit’s value then.
“Extreme steps like pegging the ringgit is only for extreme situations. Certainly, we are not in an extreme situation like that,” he added, saying that it was usual for a country with a flexible currency exchange system to experience ups and downs in an uncertain global environment.
Chua also told Parliament that Malaysia’s currency reserves now stood at RM386 billion, versus RM60 billion when the ringgit last went into freefall against the US dollar during the 1997 financial crisis..
He was replying to a supplementary question by Kalabakan MP Datuk Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh, who asked if Putrajaya was prepared to employ capital control or measures such as hedging and pegging the ringgit in the worst case scenario.
Chua also said Bank Negara Malaysia takes steps to ensure stability in the foreign exchange markets and prevent drastic fluctuations of the ringgit.
“Among this, Bank Negara Malaysia also has provisions to block speculation activities in Malaysia or offshore on the ringgit,” he said of the bank’s efforts to prevent any currency speculation attacks.
While noting that the ringgit has fallen 13.9 per cent in value from last September to March 27, Chua said it was not “isolated” as the value of other currencies have also fallen.
