Baht falls most in a month after govt raises Covid alert level

The baht fell the most since late November after the government raised the Covid-19 alert to the second-highest level, further dimming the recovery of the tourism sector.

The baht fell as much as 1% to 33.523 per dollar. That’s after the government on Thursday heightened the alert level from 3 to 4, a category that includes new guidelines to discourage dining and consuming alcohol in restaurants, leaving the house and using public transport as well as travelling abroad.

“The Thai baht is pretty sensitive to Covid-19 curbs due to the huge tourism industry,” said Mingze Wu, a foreign-exchange trader at StoneX Group in Singapore.

The baht is the worst-performing currency in emerging Asia in the last 12 months with a loss of more than 10%, as the pandemic hit the tourism-dependent economy. The nation’s currency is also weighed by more expensive energy imports…