Dollar Loses Luster Against Asia's Top Performing Currency of 2020
- Frontier currency is best Asian performer, up 11% year-to-date
- Locals turn from dollar because essentials are traded in kyat
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Zaw Moe Ko was happy that his boss in Myanmar’s commercial center of Yangon pays him in dollars -- until the pandemic struck. Now he can’t get rid of them fast enough.
“I feel safer now when I have kyat rather than U.S. dollars,” he said, in what’s become a more widespread vote of confidence in the local currency. “If I only have U.S. notes, it will be hard for me to buy goods in a local market.”