Indian rupee at nine-year high

The Indian rupee hit a nine-year high on Thursday as investors doubted the central bank would intervene, but South Korea's won slipped after data showed the country's current account swung into deficit.
The Indian rupee rose as high as 40.71 per dollar as investors shrugged off worries of official steps to limit further gains in Asia's best-performing currency this year. It rallied past 41 on Wednesday for the first time in nine years.
The rupee has risen 8.4 percent against the dollar this year, including an increase of about 3 percent in the past week, which some analysts said could help India check inflationary pressures. But Reserve Bank of India Governor Yaga Venugopal Reddy said on Wednesday that might not be the case and in fact could fuel demand.
The Philippine peso rose moderately to 47.435 per dollar as concerns over the surprise resignation of the national treasurer eased. The peso came under brief selling pressure on Wednesday after Omar Cruz quit. "It's in a tight range but the market seems to have absorbed concerns about Cruz's resignation," a Manila-based trader said. "They are looking at the possibility that the fiscal position improvements stay intact." Most Asian currencies were range-bound as the dollar remained within sight of its record low against the euro after mixed US data that did little to allay market fears of a slowdown in the world's largest economy.
"I guess the dollar continues to be in the doldrums with sentiment towards Asian currencies still positive," said Emmanuel Ng, a currency strategist at OCBC Bank.
Suspected dollar-buying by the Bank of Korea also weighed on the won, dealers said, after data showed South Korea's current account swung to a seasonally adjusted deficit of $446 million in March from a surplus in February.
"They don't want the won to go up further as the appreciation may affect the economic picture, but investors, especially foreign investors, still think it's still too cheap," said a dealer at a major Korean bank in Seoul. The won weakened as low as 930 to the dollar, down almost 0.4 percent from late Asian trade on Wednesday.
UBS analysts said in a research note that they expected the pace of the won's appreciation against the dollar to slow, but they maintained a three-month forecast of 920 per dollar. The analysts estimated that the Bank of Korea's average monthly dollar-buying intervention had eased to $1.5 billion in the first quarter of this year from $2.0 billion in 2006.