Brazil and China eye plan to axe dollar
By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Published: May 18 2009 18:24 | Last updated: May 18 2009 23:31
Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.
The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency.
Mr Lula da Silva, who is visiting Beijing this week, and Hu Jintao, China’s president, first discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month.
An official at Brazil’s central bank stressed that talks were at an early stage. He also said that what was under discussion was not a currency swap of the kind China recently agreed with Argentina and which the US had agreed with several countries, including Brazil.
“Currency swaps are not necessarily trade related,” the official said. “The funds can be drawn down for any use. What we are talking about now is Brazil paying for Chinese goods with reals and China paying for Brazilian goods with renminbi.”
Henrique Meirelles and Zhou Xiaochuan, governors of the two countries’ central banks, were expected to meet soon to discuss the matter, the official said.
Self protection impulses are PRECISELY what Smoot Hawley was. Impulses which are impediments to trade (and other nations will benefit more than we do from all this, considering how LITTLE we manufacture) will hurt everyone, BADLY
If we all collapse back towards individually defined trades based on bilateral agreements, designed to protect the currencies of each nation, this will tip over in a rush of protectionist emotion.
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