Driven by pouring tourists, Thailand's baht achieves year-end targets

Thailand’s baht rebounded so rapidly in the past few weeks on optimism about the country’s tourism-led growth that it’s already hit year-end analyst targets.

The currency jumped 2.3 per cent to about 35.45 per dollar this month, leading gains in Asia by a wide margin. In addition to rising forecasts for tourists arrivals, the advance is also being driven by a narrowing current-account deficit due to falling oil prices.

The surge means the baht has already touched the 35.2 level forecast for the fourth quarter by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The rapid gains also feed into the debate over whether