Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said the ringgit’s performance has to be viewed from a broader perspective and measured against other currencies and not solely against the US dollar.

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 29): The ringgit is expected to strengthen in 2024, driven by several factors, including the government’s fiscal discipline, better global economic growth and easing of uncertainties in the US currency policy, Minister of Economy Rafizi Ramli said.

He said the ringgit’s performance has to be viewed from a broader perspective and measured against other currencies and not solely against the US dollar.

“This is how central banks around the world measure the value of their currency, which is a comparison against a group of other major currencies that trade with that country.

“The majority of currencies in the world depreciated against the US dollar as a result of the US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) aggressive actions to raise interest rates,” he said in a post on X on Wednesday.

He said the value of a currency has to be measured against other economic indicators such as economic growth, inflation rate, amount of new investment, interest rate, unemployment rate and salary scale, among others.

Rafizi said the Malaysian economy grew at a good momentum for three consecutive quarters with the lowest inflation rate since 2021.

The ringgit depreciated by 0.6% against the US dollar and fell 0.2% against the Singapore dollar in the third quarter of 2023.

However, the local unit strengthened against the Japanese yen by 2.9%, improved against the Thai baht and British pound by 2.4% and also appreciated against the Indonesian rupiah (2%), South Korean won (1.7%), euro (1.6%), Australian dollar (14%) and Chinese renminbi (0.2%).