Asia’s best currency driven by tourists pouring into Thailand

SEOUL (BLOOMBERG) – Thailand’s baht has rebounded so rapidly in the past few weeks on optimism about the country’s tourism-led growth that it has already hit year-end analyst targets.

The currency has jumped 4.6 per cent to around 35.3 per US dollar this month, leading gains in Asia by a wide margin. In addition to rising forecasts for tourists arrivals, the advance is also being driven by a narrowing current account deficit due to falling oil prices.

The surge means the baht has already touched the 35.2 level forecast for the fourth quarter by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, just before the nation reports its gross domestic product data on Monday (Aug 15).

The rapid gains also feed into the debate over whether the dollar has peaked, as analysts start to weigh in on the right time to return to emerging markets, which had seen capital outflows as the United States embarked on…