Bangkok - The Thai baht hit a nine-month low against the dollar Wednesday, trading at 34.15 to the greenback, bank sources said.

The sharp decline in the currency was attributed to heavy buying of dollars by foreign banks in Thailand and importers, said the Kasikorn Research Center, a think-tank attached to Kasikorn Bank.

Like most Asian currencies, the Thai baht has steadily appreciated against the dollar, gaining almost 20 per cent over the past two years before starting to weaken in June in the wake of rising inflation, growing political instability, declines on the stock market and slowing growth projections.

Bangkok - The Thai baht hit a

Bangkok - The Thai baht hit a nine-month low against the dollar Wednesday, trading at 34.15 to the greenback, bank sources said.

The sharp decline in the currency was attributed to heavy buying of dollars by foreign banks in Thailand and importers, said the Kasikorn Research Center, a think-tank attached to Kasikorn Bank.

Like most Asian currencies, the Thai baht has steadily appreciated against the dollar, gaining almost 20 per cent over the past two years before starting to weaken in June in the wake of rising inflation, growing political instability, declines on the stock market and slowing growth projections.

Bangkok - Thailand's exports are expected to increase up to 20 per cent this year, after hitting 87.11 trillion dollars in the first six months, the Export-Import Bank of Thailand forecast Tuesday.

The bank's economic information department noted that Thailand's exports to new markets surged 31.1 per cent during the first half of 2008, the state-run Thai News Agency reported.

Exports to Africa rose 60.5 per cent, while those to Indochina, a group consisting of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, rose 57 per cent, and exports to Eastern Europe were up by 31.8 per cent.

Bangkok - Thousands of Thai protestors marched on the British embassy in Bangkok Tuesday to demand Britain refuse asylum to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife, Pojaman, who fled to London last week to escape pending corruption cases against them.

About 2,000 protestors from the People's Alliance for Democracy, a loose coalition of anti-Thaksin groups, stopped traffic on Ploenchit Road, a major artery in central Bangkok, as they marched to the embassy, where they shouted slogans and delivered a letter to the ambassador.

Bangkok - Thailand's rice exports are heading for "tragedy" in 2009 if the government pursues its policy of offering above-market prices to farmers to stockpile the grain, industry sources said Thursday.

Commerce Minister Chaiya Sasomsap has hinted the government would pay rice farmers up to 15,000 baht (446 dollars) per ton for ordinary rice and 19,000 baht per ton for jasmine rice in the coming months to boost farmers' incomes and stockpile the grain for exports.