The Korean won and the New Taiwan dollar are down 1.4% and 0.5% versus the UD dollar respectively so far this year. Economists at Commerzbank expect these currencies to remain under pressure as the conflict in Ukraine will negatively affect the semiconductor industry.

Conflict to hit semiconductors

“A prolonged conflict that keeps oil prices high will hurt Asian growth and currencies. Supply disruptions will hurt the major semiconductor producers in Asia even further, namely Taiwan, South Korea, and to a lesser extent, Singapore.”

“There is scope for a further pullback in KRW and particularly for TWD after the strong performance in the past two years.”