Thamasat lecturers urge BOT to print more baht

Pranee

Nipon Poapongsakorn, the dean of Faculty of Economics from Thamasat University, said he agreed with prominent economists Virabongsa Ramangkura and Ammar Siamwalla that the central bank should use interest rate to control foreign exchange rate. The interest rate policy should be used to reverse the market expectation that the baht will be stronger further. Nipon said rate cut only 25 basis points is too small.

 Praipol Koomsup, lecturer of economics at Thamasat, said the central bank should print more baht to curb baht appreciation as the cost is low and would not harm the economy as it would be in 1997 crisis. In addition, with low interest rate, the cost of bond issuance after baht intervention would be low. Thus, the BOT will be able to keep the baht appreciation at par with other countries.

 Pranee Tinakorn, another lecturer of economics at Thamasat, also said she supports the idea of printing more baht as some countries including China also print their currencies in the same situation. Now, China has high amount of international reserves which are partly used to invest in foreign assets. She added that the central bank should prepare "Tobin tax", or the tax on capital flows, measure to implement when needed. However, the tax rate should not be as high as 30 per cent. - The Nation

Wichit Chaitrong