The Thai baht last week reached a six-year high of 37.34 against the US dollar yesterday. The baht has been strengthening on the back of steady capital inflows and buying by foreign institutional investors. Economists predict reported that the Baht is likely to further strengthen and touch 37 to the US dollar by the third quarter of 2007.
The appreciation of China's currency is accelerating. Last Thursday the daily benchmark value increased to a new high of 7.9688 yuan to one US dollar, following the release of the quarterly monetary report by the central bank. The central bank report said that the exchange rate had a role to play in evening out the international payment imbalance. Since the government has indicated that the trade imbalance also needs to be contained, the report increased market speculation that the exchange rate will be loosened and accelerate an appreciation.
Mexico posted a $31.3 billion trade surplus with the USA in the first half of 2006. In the period January to June 2006 Mexican exports to the USA stood at $98.0 billion, including $15.6 billion of crude oil, and imports from the US at $66.7 billion. Mexico is the US’ second biggest trade partner after China. Chinese exports to the USA totalled $127.5 billion in the first half of 2006.
As much as 5.5 billion zlotys ($1.7 billion) of EU funds have been absorbed by Polish self-ruling bodies, firms and nongovernmental organizations, since 1 May 2004 when Poland joined the EU. Poland has already received 17% of the subsidy promised up until 2008. If the country keeps up the pace, some 42%out of 8.5 billion euros can be transferred to Poland by the end of this year. However, the European Commission has warned Poland that if road and railway projects are not implemented, billions of zlotys will be wasted. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration has over 350 million zlotys unspent that were earmarked for IT investment. Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski recently discussed a "black list" of ministries that cannot cope with EU funds.