Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd chief economist Afzanizam Rashid said China’s trade performance continued to deteriorate with total exports and imports falling further by 14.5% and 12.4% respectively in July (June: -12.4%, -6.8% respectively).

“This suggests that the second-largest economy is facing a challenging outlook this year. Consequently, the yuan has weakened against the US dollar by 0.018% to 7.2111 yuan.

“Following this, China’s monetary policy is likely to remain accommodative to provide support to the overall economy. Given the close correlation between the yuan and ringgit at 68%, the ringgit has also weakened further,” he told Bernama.

At 6pm, the local currency fell to 4.5815/4.5845 against the US dollar compared with 4.5575/4.5625 at yesterday’s close.

The ringgit was also traded lower against a basket of major currencies.

It dropped against the Japanese yen to 3.2027/3.2050 from 3.2018/3.2056 yesterday, weakened versus the euro to 5.0264/5.0297 from 4.9978/5.0032 and declined vis-a-vis the British pound to 5.8332/5.8370 from 5.7971/5.8035 previously.

At the same time, the local unit traded lower against other Asean currencies.

The ringgit went down versus the Singapore dollar to 3.4030/3.4055 from 3.3968/3.4008 from Monday’s close and depreciated against the Indonesian rupiah to 301.0/301.3 from 300.0/300.6 yesterday.

It eased vis-a-vis the Philippine peso to 8.14/8.15 from 8.13/8.14 on Monday and fell against the Thai baht at 13.1050/1184 from 13.0801/0997 previously.