prahkeitouj wrote:If we aren't civil servant, our salary is Dollar.

I wonder why Riel is cheaper than Baht ? Does it relate to economic? How about Vietnam , why their currency is very cheap?

Jamie_Lambo wrote:i wouldnt trust the american dollar too much in the future, why do you think America is so obsessed with the oil in the middle east? because it gets traded in american dollars, if the Gulf were to end trading their oil from USD and use Gold instead, (which they have had many meetings about over the past few years) it would seriously effect the USD, the reported deadline in 2018 could see some big changes!

TheGrinchSR wrote:
To a certain extent the number of one currency that can be purchased in another is arbitrary. It is often based on historic relationships or internal valuation of the currency at the time of adoption. At one point $80 would buy 1 Kuwait Dinar while $1 would buy more than 1 trillion Zimabwe dollars (these numbers are no longer true for either currency).

The only time exchange rates matter is if you're trying to leave your country and spend money elsewhere... otherwise the only thing that matters is how much stuff do you get for X amount of local currency?

wackyjacky wrote:X = any random number.

prahkeitouj wrote:

TheGrinchSR wrote:
To a certain extent the number of one currency that can be purchased in another is arbitrary. It is often based on historic relationships or internal valuation of the currency at the time of adoption. At one point $80 would buy 1 Kuwait Dinar while $1 would buy more than 1 trillion Zimabwe dollars (these numbers are no longer true for either currency).

The only time exchange rates matter is if you're trying to leave your country and spend money elsewhere... otherwise the only thing that matters is how much stuff do you get for X amount of local currency?

Thanks for your explanation, but not really get the meaning.
Btw what is X .... mean?

TheGrinchSR wrote:
Basically, it means currencies are neither cheap nor expensive from inside a country. 4,000 Riel, is 8,000 Kip or 22,000 VND but so what? In general they buy about the same amount of goods in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam respectively.

The only time these numbers matter is when there are dramatic changes. This week the VND went from 21,000 to 22,000 to $1. That's nearly a 5% change. To the Vietnamese farmer... this is no big issue, almost everything he buys is made inside the country - it will take a long while for the change to filter through the system to his pocket. To the Vietnamese software development company, that buys a lot of imported technology this is not good news though - they are now 5% worse off than last week (they need to spend more of their money on importing stuff than they did before).

Cambodia to some extent is protected from that because most people are paid in USD and bank in USD. If the Riel goes to 4,300 to $1 - it doesn't matter. However, conversely, this week people buying Vietnamese products with dollars just got a 5% discount, in Cambodia because every major transaction is in dollars - they got no discount. So, buying from Vietnam just became a better option - if two products were the same price before the start of the week.