TOKYO: The euro on Friday hovered around seven-month lows on the dollar and was also weak against Asian currencies on speculation that the European Central Bank will unleash fresh stimulus measures next week. Further action by the ECB to boost the 19-nation eurozone economy was likely to heap pressure on Asian policymakers to loosen monetary policy in a bid to push down their units to stay competitive, analysts said. The common currency declined against the yen Friday, while it has also lost ground in recent days against the South Korean won and Singapore dollar among other emerging units. "(Asian) currencies don´t look that cheap," Mitul Kotecha, head of Asian foreign-exchange and interest-rate strategy at Barclays in Singapore, told Bloomberg News. "When you look at real-effective rates, they haven´t weakened significantly. That´s why there´s probably still more room for further depreciation." Speculation that the ECB will announce further measures at its policy meeting next Thursday have also revived expectations that the euro may soon hit parity with the dollar for the first time since 2002.
