THE Philippine peso fell back to P51:$1 on Wednesday amid the continuing trade tensions between the United States and China.
The peso, which opened at P51.10 against the greenback, lost 7 centavos to close at P51.02.
Union Bank of the Philippines chief economist Ruben Carlo Asuncion told The Manila Times the slight weakening may have come from the recent down play by US President Donald Trump on the urgency of a trade deal with China.
“Market is recognizing further uncertainty with Trump’s ‘I have no deadline’ on the China trade deal statement,” he said, adding that the local currency could range P50.90-P51.20 to a dollar today (Thursday).
Sharing this view is Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. economist Michael Ricafort, blaming the peso’s weakness to Trump’s signal that there is no urgency for any partial trade deal with China, contrary to market expectations about a possible partial trade deal as early as December this year.
“Sentiment on global financial markets, including the peso, weighed also after the Trump administration also threatened to go ahead with the scheduled tariffs on about $160 billion of US imports from China by December 15, 2019 if no partial trade deal is agreed by then,” he added.
But Ricafort believes that offsetting positive factors that could temper peso weakness are the net foreign buying at the local currency and some seasonal increase in overseas Filipino worker remittances in the coming days for Christmas-related spending.
Last year, the peso ended at P52.58 against the dollar, sharply down from its 2017 close of P49.93:$1.
