Currency in Thailand
The first baht banknotes were issued in Bangkok in 1889 by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. In 1892 the company Giesecke and Devrient from Germany printed banknotes for Thailand, which were also first put into circulation in Bangkok. The currency baht is the name of money in Thailand. The abbreviation is ฿ and Bt and บาท it is in the Thai language. The ISO code is THB. The division of the Thai Baht is 1 Baht = 100 Satang (สตางค์). One salueng (สลึง) is 25 satang.
The denominations of the coins are 1, 2, 5 and 10 Baht. The smallest coins are 25 and 50 satang. These are usually only accepted in the larger supermarkets. The banknotes of the small bills are 20 and 50 baht. The banknotes of the large notes are 100, 500 and 1,000 baht.
In the neighboring countries of Burma, at least in the border areas and in Cambodia and in large parts of Laos, the Thai baht is accepted as a means of payment in addition to the local currency. It is perfectly sufficient to acquire the currency of the country upon arrival in Thailand.
History of the baht
From 1970 to 1984, Thailand had economic problems. Investment from the US declined, a current account deficit and a sudden surge in oil prices led to inflation. Due to inflation, the Thai baht was devalued from THB 20.78 to the USD to THB 27.00 between 1981 and 1984. The Thai baht was also eighty percent pegged to the US dollar, which led to an economic boom from 1987 to 1996. However, due to the country’s current account deficit, the debt grew to US $ 109.276 billion in 1997, even though Thailand had only US $ 38.700 billion as international reserve.
The Thai government then closed 18 trust companies, 3 commercial and commercial banks and 56 financial institutions. To protect the Thai baht, Thailand sold $ 24,000 billion, which was around two-thirds of their total international reserve. That left only $ 2.850 billion. When the Thai government floated the Thai baht, the beginning of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 was sealed.
The Thai economy collapsed and the Thai baht fell from 25 baht to the US dollar to 56 baht. The Thai economy recovered from 2001 onwards. But apart from the tsunami in 2005, a military coup in 2006 and a flood in 2011/2012, which caused damage of 45.7 billion US dollars, the Thai economy was hit hard. Now after the flood, Thailand’s economy is slowly recovering.
