Dwindling foreign exchange reserves spells risk for EM currencies

Thailand saw the biggest drop in reserves as a percentage of the gross domestic product, followed by Malaysia and India, according to data compiled by Bloomberg

Emerging Asian central banks have seen a sharp depletion in their foreign-exchange reserves, stoking concerns it may crimp market interventions to curb currency losses in the face of the mighty dollar.

A closely-watched measure of reserves cover — the number of months of imports a country can finance with its foreign-exchange holdings — has dropped to about seven for EM Asia ex-China, the lowest since the global financial crisis in 2008, according to Standard Chartered. It was about 10 months at the beginning of the year and as high as 16 in August 2020, pointing to an erosion of developing