Myanmar to issue 10,000 Kyat banknote
Myanmar to issue 10,000 Kyat banknote
The Central Bank of Myanmar Thursday announced it would put larger-value denomination of currency notes of 10,000 Kyats into circulation starting on June 15, while keeping all other existing currency notes and coins as legal tender.
The announcement was aired by the state radio and television in the evening.
The new 10,000 Kyat banknote is another larger-value denomination of currency notes to be introduced nearly three years after currency notes of 5,000-Kyat were put into circulation on Oct. 1, 2009.
The bank authorities' move is seen as to facilitate high-value transactions.
However, the introduction of the new banknotes of 10,000 Kyats, which is two times that of the face value of the last 5,000 Kyats, is expected to drawn public concern and the impact on the financial market and the commodity prices remain to be monitored.
There has been 11 kinds of bank notes in circulation in Myanmar which are 50-pyas, 1-Kyat, 5-Kyat, 10-Kyat, 20-Kyat, 50-Kyat, 100- Kyat, 200-Kyat, 500-Kyats, 1,000-Kyat and 5,000-Kyat over the period of the past several decades.
On April 2, Myanmar started the adoption of managed floating foreign exchange rate regime, moving the exchange rate regime from a peg of 8.5 Kyats to a managed floating exchange rate and the rate is quoted as 830 Kyats per USD currently, up from 818 Kyats per USD when it was first applied.
Myanmar's foreign exchange rate against U.S. dollar has been traditionally designated as around 6 Kyats per U.S. dollar since 1975, while the market exchange rate fluctuated between 780 and 1, 000 Kyats per dollar for the past several years, standing for most of the time around over 800 Kyats per dollar for the past year.
To eliminate illegal foreign exchange trading, 11 private banks have been granted as authorized dealers to open official money exchangers since Oct. 1 last year to enable official trade of three kinds of foreign currencies with Myanmar Kyats at a rate designated in line with daily exchange rate transacting in the international exchange market.
These foreign currencies are U.S. dollar, Singapore dollar and Euro.
xinhuanet
