Thai baht fell today as nation’s Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong expressed concerns that the strong currency hurts Thailand’s economy and voiced his opinion that the central bank should ease the monetary policy.

The Finance Minister stated that “the range of 32 to 34″ bahts per dollar “would be very good”.

Kittiratt also said:

Thailand is similar to other countries suffering from cost-push inflation because of higher energy costs that come out of the tension in the Middle East. If the central bank would agree to let the interest rate down a little bit further, that would be good.

Thai companies are struggling to resume production after the worst flood in almost 70 years. That has led to the more-than-expected drop of exports in January.

USD/THB rose from 30.7750 to 30.7850 as of 12:12 GMT today, while the intraday high was 30.8450.

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