KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27: Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Saturday said Malaysia favours a steady rise in the value of the ringgit after it rose to its strongest position in nearly a decade against the US dollar.

“We want to see a stable ringgit which appreciates gradually. What we do not want is for the ringgit to fluctuate,” he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.

Abdullah, who is also the finance minister, attributed the strengthening of the ringgit to investors’ confidence in the local currency, the expanding economy and strong foreign exchange reserves.

On Friday, the ringgit hit a new high of 3.3480, a level not seen since March 1998, before the currency was pegged to the US dollar.

The ringgit was fixed at 3.80 to the dollar in September 1998 to control currency speculation during the financial crisis, which was ravaging East Asian economies.

The ringgit had reached a record low of 4.885 in January 1998.

Malaysia’s former premier Mahathir Mohamed undertook the controversial route of pegging the ringgit and imposing capital controls as a way of shielding Malaysia’s economy from the crisis.

The currency peg outlasted most of the other measures but was finally abandoned in July 2005, in favour of a managed float based on a basket of currencies. —AFP