KUALA LUMPUR: There are no plans by the Government to peg the ringgit to the US dollar, similar to what was done during the global financial crisis in 1997, said Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Chua Tee Yong (pic).

“There is no proposal to peg the ringgit as what was done during the 1997 global financial crisis.

“The situation currently is different from what was faced then and there is no need to introduce such a measure,” he said when answering a question by Datuk Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh in Parliament on Monday.

He added that Bank Negara carries out daily monitoring of the ringgit and that there are existing laws to prevent attacks from currency speculators.

The ringgit was pegged to the US dollar at an exchange rate of 3.8 on September 1998.
Chua noted that in 1997 the nation’s reserves were RM60bil compared to RM386bil currently.-thestar