Driven by the inflow of foreign capital, the New Taiwan Dollar rose against the U.S. dollar for the second consecutive day on Thursday, closing at 29.05 NT, the highest level since October 1997.

Due to the appreciation of NTD currency, local travel industry businesses have noticed a 10% decrease in tour packages fees to the U.S., or Southeast Asia after the Chinese New Year.

With the hot money coming from foreign investors, the U.S. Dollar fell against the New Taiwan Dollar and closed at NT$29.05 yesterday.

The greenback had once fell to the lowest at 28.94 during the day's session, which means that 100,000 NT Dollars can exchange for 3,442 US dollars.

The amount is 131 US Dollars more than what the same amount of NT Dollars can exchange for, which is 3311 U.S. Dollars during this January at the exchange rate of 30.2.

Experts said that international hot money has returned to Asia, causing the appreciation of NT Dollar for the consecutive past two days.

However, some scholars believe that the central bank will control the NT Dollar appreciation to reduce the inflation pressure.

The NT Dollar appreciation suggests that purchasing power of Taiwanese consumers have increased, which may benefit the importers.

However, export-oriented industries such as electronic industry will suffer from currency exchange losses.

Scholars believe that comparing with other Asian currencies, NT Dollar has less appreciation, which will bring less pressure to local export-oriented industries.

Besides, the demand for imported goods in Japanese market after the earthquake is likely to merge in the third quarter of this year, which is also considered as a good news to Taiwan's export industries.

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