Strength of baht spurs fear

Tax on online gold trading under study

- WICHIT CHANTANUSORNSIRI SOMRUEDI BANCHONGDUANG

The Thai baht has recently strengthened to around 31.10 to 31.12 per US dollar, prompting representatives of the country's three financial agencies to meet yesterday to roll out three regulatory measures next month.

The measures include the possible imposition of a special business tax on online gold trading, an assessment by the Revenue Department (RD) of whether it is appropriate to impose such a tax and the Bank of Thailand's (BoT) consideration of supervisory tools to manage the volume of gold trading conducted through digital platforms.

Authorities move to curb speculative capital flows blamed for driving the baht to its strongest level in four years.

The measures were outlined at a joint briefing yesterday attended by Finance Ministry permanent secretary Lavaron Sangsnit, BoT governor Vitai Ratanakorn, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) secretary-general Pornanong Budsaratragoon.