As soon as your home currency gains in value against other currencies it appreciates meaning that the same level of it can purchase a more substantial level of a particular foreign currency. It’s good news for a traveller planning to go to a country whose currency is depreciating against his home currency or for a migrant worker who intends to send money to his relatives abroad. Broadly speaking, appreciation means that when a week ago your one British pound was in parity to the U.S. dollar (1 pound buys 1 dollar) and the pound appreciated by 30 per cent throughout the week, so you will have a way to purchase 1.3 U.S. dollars for your one pound.

This really is an over-simplification of the procedure of appreciation of the currencies, though. The house currency rates go up whenever a currency appreciates but these foreign exchange rate fluctuations affect not only the value of the property and destination currencies but the entire economy as well. Higher currency rates i.e. appreciation of the currency means that the country’s exports be much more expensive and imports cheaper, boosts demand for imported goods but lowers domestic exports. A process of currency appreciation could trigger a demands for lowering the expenses of production and can result in freezing of wages in the united states whose currency becomes too expensive. Sometimes entire industries can be forced to move their production facilities abroad to make the most of the lower production costs and more advantageous currency rates of the neighborhood currency.

Many governments around the world are apprehensive of appreciations of the national currency and forcedly restrain valutis kursi  the national currency from making substantial gains from the major world currencies. Between 1985 and 1992, the currency exchange rate of the Japanese yen from the U.S. dollar rose from 254 yen per dollar to about 110 yen per dollar and the government in Tokyo was forced to intervene in the market to aid the dollar to be able to protect the competitive prices of the Japanese export to the United States. Many governments follow the example of Japan to save the competitiveness of the national economies and this is a good illustration of a widespread opinion that the high currency rates possess danger of economy downturn.

During the past decades, China has become a good illustration of a country, which will keep its currency undervalued supporting market currency rates that are lower than the actual value of its home currency to be able to deliver cheap exported goods to the outside world. It’s not necessarily a poor thing or a bad policy although a lot of developed countries including the U.S. and the European Union complain that China should untie the yuan and allow it float free on the financial markets. The global political and economic chessboard is subject to rules apart from the fundamental rules of the marketplace economy, though. In this global game, the currency rates and the appreciation or depreciation of a currency can be a hostage of long-term interests, which are often in conflict with the actual market value of a currency and the current currency rates.