Will the world abandon the Dollar as a reserve currency?

[DSieve]

About 50 percent of Hong Kong’s trade with China may be settled in yuan as exporters reduce their exposure to a weakening dollar, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (Asia) Ltd. said.

The first settlements of international trade using China’s currency will start with about 400 Chinese companies in five pilot cities, Stanley Wong, deputy general manager at the unit of China’s biggest bank, said in an interview today in Hong Kong. The payments may expand to half of the $30 billion in trade excluding transshipments when authorities extend the program nationwide as soon as 2010, he said.

“There has been a perception that the U.S. dollar will continue to weaken,” said Wong. “Definitely on an annual basis, the yuan will probably appreciate against the U.S. dollar around 3 percent to 5 percent. It makes sense for companies to avoid foreign-exchange risk.”

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in March expressed concern the dollar will weaken and is promoting greater use of the yuan in transactions with trade partners. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang wants the city to be the first outside of the mainland to use local-currency settlement, part of a bid to become a yuan finance hub.
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Yuan May Account for 50% of Hong Kong-China Trade (Update3)

Professor Roubini, of New York University's Stern business school, believes that while such a major change is some way off, the Chinese government is laying the ground for the yuan's ascendance.

Known as "Dr Doom" for his negative stance, Prof Roubini argues that China is better placed than the US to provide a reserve currency for the 21st century because it has a large current account surplus, focused government and few of the economic worries the US faces.

In a column in the New York Times, Prof Roubini warns that with the proposal for a new international reserve currency via the International Monetary Fund, Beijing has already begun to take steps to usurp the greenback.

China will soon want to see the yuan included in the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights "basket", he warns, as well as seeing it "used as a means of payment in bilateral trade."
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China's yuan 'set to usurp US dollar' as world's reserve currency

[DSieve]

TEHRAN – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the use of the euro instead of the dollar as the basic foreign currency in the Forex Reserve Fund calculations.

The Mehr News Agency reported that this order was issued in line with a decision made in this regard by the board of trustees of the Forex Reserve Fund.

Prior to this, the Islamic Republic of Iran had announced that it had stopped selling oil in dollars and started using euro in its oil transactions

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=203592

[DSieve]

"Federal Reserve needs to cut US Dollar in half over next 14 years"

"The IMF is being annointed as a global central bank."

[DSieve]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the United States should not take the dollar's status as the world's key reserve currency for granted because other options are emerging.

In excerpts released on Sunday from a speech that he is to deliver on Monday, Zoellick said global economic forces were shifting and it was time now to prepare for the fact that growth will come from multiple sources.

"The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency," he said. "Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options."

Zoellick said that a meeting of Group of 20 rich and developing countries in Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday had made "a good start" toward increased global cooperation but they will have accept global monitoring of their activities.

"Peer review will need to be peer pressure," he said.

Zoellick said that the G20, as the new chief forum for international economic cooperation, also must not forget the 160 countries left outside its structure and should try to open opportunity for them.

"We need a system of international political economy that reflects a new multi-polarity of growth," Zoellick said. It needs to integrate rising economic powers as 'responsible stakeholders' while recognizing that these countries are still home to hundreds of millions of poor and face staggering challenges of development.".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090927/...dbank_zoellick