KUALA LUMPUR: The Ringgit movement will continue to remain volatile as global currencies watch closely for any possibility of changes in US politics, trade policies, said Maybank Investment Bank chief economist Suhaimi Ilias.
“I think the Ringgit movement moving forward, would remain volatile as the key factors influencing the currency, not just Ringgit, but globally, against the US dollar is due to uncertainty of politics and policies.
“We are trying to decipher and decode what are the policies that are going to be adopted by president-elect Donald Trump following the outcome of the US elections particularly.
“For the emerging markets, the main issues will be on US trade policies as well as the fiscal and monetary policies. But I think the policies and political factors will continue to be the key theme from next year,” he told reporters on the sideline of the Malaysia Statistics Conference 2016 yesterday.
Themed “Strengthening Statistical Usage for Decisions and Innovations”, the conference brought together participants from the public and private sectors as well as users and compilers of statistics with a total of 30 papers to be presented and discussed.
Looking ahead to 2017, Suhaimi said the global economy will also see the start of the Brexit negotiations and a number of key elections taking place in Europe.
“We have to appreciate the fact that despite all the noise revolving around the currency, the fundamentals remain positive as reflected in the higher GDP growth of 4.3 per cent as well as the country’s current account surplus having improved.
“Fundamentals of the economy is generally positive, economy is still growing, we still have current account surplus albeit smaller, government is still committed to fiscal consolidation and the banking sector is still intact,” said Suhaimi before concluding the interview.
He was speaking to about 100 participants in the talk titled "Statistics for Decisions and Innovation - A Bank's perspective" question and answer session.