T he Central Bank will auction $500,000 to support its riel currency, which has weakened

against the dollar since consumers went on a spending spree last month, a senior

bank official said on May 15.

The director of the bank's economic research department, Chea Sok, said the riel

was trading at 3,850 to the dollar, compared with 3,600 before the mid-April traditional

new year holiday.

Sok said he believed an exchange rate of around 3,700 riel to the dollar was appropriate.

He said there was currently some 400 billion riel ($104 million) in curculation and

the central bank was working in cooperation with the ministry of finance to try to

take some of the excess out of the market. -Reuters