New Taiwan dollar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The New Taiwan Dollar (新臺幣 or 新台幣; ISO 4217 code TWD; old abbreviation NT$) or simply Taiwan Dollar is the official currency of the Republic of China (on Taiwan). It is issued by the Central Bank of China.
In ROC law, the old fiat currency (法幣) or silver yuan (銀元; de-coupled from the metal during World War Two by Chiang Kai-shek's administration) has been used in older statutes; many amounts for fines and fees are denominated in this unit. The exchange rate has been fixed at 3 TWD per 1 silver yuan and has never been changed despite decades of inflation.
The currency was first issued in the early 1950s after the evacuation of the ROC government to Taiwan to replace the (old) Taiwan dollar. The first goal of the New Taiwan Dollar was to end the hyperinflation which had plagued the ROC in its final years on Mainland China. In the history of the currency the exchange rate as compared to the United States Dollar (USD) has varied from over 40 TWD per 1 USD in the 1960s to about 25 TWD per 1 USD around 1990. The exchange rate has been around 33 TWD per 1 USD in recent few years.
In Mandarin, the basic unit of the Taiwan Dollar is called a yuan; colloquially, it is called kuài (塊). Subdivisions of a yuan are rarely used, since practically all products on the consumer market are being sold at whole units of yuan. In Taiwanese, the unit is called kho·.
External links