Event
official currency of Malaysia
The Malaysian ringgit ((, Malaysian: [ˈriŋget]); plural: ringgit; symbol: RM; currency code: MYR; Malay name: Ringgit Malaysia; formerly the Malaysian dollar) is the currency of Malaysia. Issued by the Central Bank of Malaysia, it is divided into 100 cents (Malay: sen).
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Malaysian ringgit”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Malaysian ringgit ((, Malaysian: [ˈriŋget]); plural: ringgit; symbol: RM; currency code: MYR; Malay name: Ringgit Malaysia; formerly the Malaysian dollar) is the currency of Malaysia. Issued by the Central Bank of Malaysia, it is divided into 100 cents (Malay: sen).
The word ringgit is an obsolete term for "jagged" in the Malay language. The word was originally used to refer to serrated edges. The first European coins to circulate widely in the region were Spanish "pieces of eight" or "cob", their crude appearance resembling stones, hence the word jagged. The availability and circulation of this Spanish currency were due to the Spanish controlling nearby Philippines.
An early printed source, the Dictionary of the Malayan Language from 1812 had already referred to the ringgit as a unit of money.
In modern usage, ringgit is used almost solely for the currency. Due to the common heritage of the three modern currencies, the Singapore dollar and the Brunei dollar are also called ringgit in Malay (currencies such as the US and Australian dollars are translated as dolar), although nowadays the Singapore dollar is more commonly called dolar in Malay. To differentiate between the three currencies, the Malaysian currency is referred to as Ringgit Malaysia, hence the official abbreviation and currency symbol RM. Internationally, the ISO 4217 currency code for Malaysian ringgit is MYR.
The Malay names ringgit and sen were officially adopted as the sole official names on 28 August 1975. Previously they had been known officially as dollars and cents in English and ringgit and sen in Malay, and in some parts of the country this usage continues. In the northern states of Peninsular Malaysia, denominations of 10 sen are called kupang in Northern Malay and called pua̍t (鏺/鈸) in Penang Hokkien which is thought to be derived from the Thai word baht. e.g. 50 sen is lima kupang in Malay or samah in the Kelantan dialect and gōo-pua̍t (五鏺/鈸) in Hokkien. The Tamil speaking communities in Malaysia use veḷḷi (வெள்ளி) meaning "silver" in Tamil to refer to ringgit, while for sen, the word kācu (காசு) is used, from which the English word cash, as in Chinese copper cash coins, is derived.
The Spanish-American silver dollar brought over by the Manila galleons was the primary currency for international trade, used in Asia and the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries; it was eventually called the ringgit. The various dollars introduced in the 19th century were itself derived from the Spanish dollar: the Straits dollar, Sarawak dollar and the British North Borneo dollar. From these dollars were derived their successor currencies the Malayan dollar and the Malaya and British Borneo dollar, and eventually the modern-day Malaysian ringgit, Singapore dollar and Brunei dollar.
On 12 June 1967, the Malaysian dollar, issued by the new central bank, Central Bank of Malaysia, replaced the Malaya and British Borneo dollar at par. The new currency retained all denominations of its predecessor except the $10,000 denomination, and also brought over the colour schemes of the old dollar. Over the course of the following decades, minor changes were made to the notes and coins issued, from the introduction of the M$1 coin in 1967, to the demonetization of RM500 and RM1,000 notes in 1999.
As the Malaysian dollar replaced the Malaya and British Borneo dollar at par and Malaysia was a participating member of the sterling area, the new dollar was originally valued at 8+4⁄7 dollars per 1 British pound sterling; in turn, £1 = US$2.80 so that US$1 = M$3.06. In November 1967, five months after the introduction of the Malaysian dollar, the pound was devalued by 14.3% from US$2.80 to US$2.40, leading to a collapse in confidence for the sterling area and its demise in 1972. The new currency stayed pegged to the U.S. dollar at US$1 = M$3.06, but earlier notes of the Malaya and British Borneo dollar were devalued from US$2.80 to US$2.40 for 8.57 dollars; consequently these notes were reduced in value to 85 cents per dollar.
Despite the emergence of new currencies in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, the Interchangeability Agreement which the three countries adhered to as original members of the currency union meant the Malaysian dollar was exchangeable at par with the Singapore dollar and Brunei dollar. This ended on 8 May 1973, when the Malaysian government withdrew from the agreement. The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Brunei Currency and Monetary Board still maintain the interchangeability of their two currencies, as of 2021.
The Malaysian ringgit name was introduced in 1975, and in 1993, the currency symbol "RM" (Ringgit Malaysia) was adopted to replace the use of the dollar sign "$" (or "M$").
Between 1995 and 1997, the ringgit was trading as a free float currency at around 2.50 to the US dollar, but following the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the ringgit witnessed major dips to under 3.80 to the dollar by the end of 1997 as a result of capital flight. During the first half of 1998, the currency fluctuated between 3.80 and 4.40 ringgits, before the Central Bank of Malaysia moved to peg the ringgit to the dollar in September 1998, maintaining its 3.80 ringgit value while remaining floated against other currencies. In addition, the ringgit was designated non-tradeable outside of Malaysia in 1998 to stem the flow of money out of the country.
While the printing of RM500 and RM1,000 notes had ceased in 1996 in response to risks of money laundering and capital flight, the underestimated effects of the financial crisis prompted the central bank to completely discontinue the use of the notes by demonetising the remaining notes in circulation beginning 1 July 1999. The two denominations hereby ceased to be legal tender and were only exchangeable directly at the central bank; at the time of the demonetization, RM500 and RM1,000 notes were each worth approximately $130 and $260 respectably, based on the 3.80 ringgit-to-dollar peg rate. Despite these measures, some 7.6% of RM500 notes and 0.6% of RM1,000 notes remain in circulation as of 30 January 2011. During a 2011 parliamentary session, then Deputy Finance Minister Donald Lim Siang Chai asserted that a total of 150,599 and 26,018 RM500 and RM1,000 notes (RM75,299,500 worth of RM500 notes and RM26,018,000.00 worth of RM1,000 notes) had yet to be "recalled" through the central bank.
The ringgit lost 50% of its value against the US dollar between 1997 and 1998, and suffered general depreciation against other currencies between December 2001 and January 2005. As of 4 September 2008, the ringgit had yet to regain its value circa 2001 against the Singapore dollar (2.07 to 2.40 ringgits to the Singapore dollar), the euro (3.40 to 4.97 ringgits to the euro), the Australian dollar (1.98 to 2.80 ringgits to the Australian dollar), and the British pound (5.42 to 6.10 ringgits to the pound).
On 21 July 2005, Central Bank of Malaysia announced the end of the peg to the US dollar immediately after China's announcement of the end of the renminbi peg to the dollar. According to Bank Negara, Malaysia allows the ringgit to operate in a managed float against several major currencies. This has resulted in the value of the ringgit rising closer to its perceived market value, although Central Bank of Malaysia has intervened in financial markets to maintain stability in the trading level of the ringgit, a task made easier by the fact that the ringgit was pegged and has remained non-tradeable outside Malaysia since 1998.
Following the end of the currency peg, the ringgit appreciated to as high as 3.16 ringgits to the US dollar in April 2008. The ringgit had also enjoyed a period of appreciation against the Hong Kong dollar (from RM0.49 to RM0.44 to the HK dollar) and the renminbi (RM0.46 to RM0.45 per renminbi) as recently as May 2008. The initial stability of the ringgit in the late-2000s had led to considerations to reintroduce the currency to foreign trading after over a decade of being non-internationalised. In a CNBC interview in September 2010, Najib Tun Razak, the then Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Malaysia, was quoted in stating that the government was planning the reentry of the ringgit into off-shore trading if the move will help the economy, with the condition that rules and regulations were put in place to prevent abuses. Despite considerations, the ringgit has continued to remain non-internationalised in a deliberate move to continue discouraging off-shore trading of the currency.
Political uncertainty following the country's 2008 general election and the 2008 Permatang Pauh by-election, falling crude oil prices in the late-2000s, and the lack of intervention by the Central Bank of Malaysia to increase already low interest rates (which remained at 3.5% between April 2006 and November 2008) led to a slight fall of the ringgit's value against the US dollar between May and July 2008, followed by a sharper drop between August and September of the same year. As a result, the dollar appreciated significantly to close at RM3.43 to the dollar as of 4 September 2008, while other major currencies, including the renminbi and Hong Kong dollar, followed suit. The ringgit spiked at RM3.73 to the US dollar by March 2009, before gradually recovering to RM3.00 by mid-2011 and normalising at around RM3.10 to the dollar between 2011 and 2014.
The ringgit experienced more acute plunges in the value since mid-2014 following the escalation of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal that raised allegations of political channeling of billions of ringgit to off-shore accounts, and uncertainty from the 2015–16 Chinese stock market turbulence and the effects of the 2016 United States presidential election results. The currency's value fell from an average of RM3.20 to the dollar in mid-2014 to around RM3.70 by early 2015; with China being Malaysia's largest trading partner, a Chinese stock market crash in June 2015 triggered another plunge in value for the ringgit, which reached levels unseen since 1998 at lows of RM4.43 in September 2015, before stabilising around RM4.10 to RM4.20 to the dollar soon after; the currency later plummeted and hover below the 1998 lows at RM4.40 and RM4.50, following the wake of the victory of pro-protectionist Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election, which has raised questions of the United States' participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (which Malaysia is a signatory of, and the United States had promptly pulled out from in January 2017) and Malaysia–United States trade as a whole (as the United States is among Malaysia's largest trading partners).
In response to the sharp drop of the ringgit in November 2016, Central Bank of Malaysia began a series of tougher crackdowns on under-the-counter non-deliverable forward trading of the ringgit in order to curb currency speculation. Since then, the currency has seen a steady but consistent rate of appreciation against the US dollar, with significant increases since early-November 2017 following reports of positive economic performance, the restructuring of the TPP into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and increasing global oil prices. After appreciating as high as RM3.86 to the dollar as of early April 2018, the value dropped to around RM.18 by the end of October 2018 following increasing trade war tensions in response to the China–United States trade war, selloff panic from other emerging markets, as well as uncertainty in economic policy following an upset by the Pakatan Harapan coalition in the 2018 general election. With the exception of the euro, the currency's also saw some recovery of value to pre-late 2016 levels against other major currencies, including the renminbi, British pound, Australian dollar, Japanese yen and Singaporean dollar, but remained less valuable overall than before the end of 2013.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Malaysian ringgit”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.