Thai baht
Thai baht notes Reuters

Despite a series of hawkish data, the Thai central bank left the policy rate unchanged at 2% at the review on 17 September, pushing the baht back near a one-month low against the dollar.

USD/THB rose to 32.295 on Wednesday from Tuesday's close of 32.195 even as the regional peers like USD/MYR and USD/IDR traded down.

The dollar has been broadly weak as the market is preferring to stay light ahead of the FOMC rate decision, due later in the day.

The Thai baht has been on a weakening trend since mid-August and had hit a one-month low of 32.31 on 15 September before bouncing back a bit on Tuesday, helped by the dollar weakness.

A section of the market was expecting the Bank of Thailand to sound a bit hawkish this time as the data points after the last decision were largely on the positive side.

Official data on 18 August showed the Thai economy expanded 0.4% from a year earlier in the second quarter, after contracting 0.5% in the previous quarter and beating analysts' estimate of 0.3% growth.

Thai consumer price inflation slowed to 2.09% year-on-year in August from 2.16% in July, but the core measure was up to 1.83% from 1.8%, as per the data on 1 September.

The August consumer confidence indicator was also a surprise on the higher side, at 80.1 from 78.2 while the poll forecast was for a marginal increase to 79.

The Thai economy showed signs of improvements in the second quarter from private spending following the political resolution, the BoT said.

It added that the Thai exports recovered modestly, while public spending fell slightly short of previous assessment.

The Thai central bank also said that in the second half of the year, firmer domestic demand and fiscal policy, particularly public investment, should lend further impetus to growth recovery.

"Exports of goods and tourism are expected to expand at a subdued pace. Inflationary pressure remains contained," the BoT said, and added that the currency accommodative monetary policy is appropriate for the time being.