Thailand’s central bank is expected on Wednesday to try to curb inflation, running at 8.9 per cent, by raising interest rates by as much as half a point. The Philippine central bank, confronting inflation of 11.4 per cent, a 14-year high, is likely to follow suit on Thursday.

Central banks in Asia’s developing economies are being forced to move rates as higher food and oil prices spill over into inflationary expectations. In a speech this month in Tokyo, Haru­hiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank, called food and oil inflation the biggest risk to the region’s economic well-being.