Tag: currency

With unemployment rising and retailers feeling the pinch, a handful of European towns have introduced their own currencies to help keep cash in the local economy.

With the dollar seemingly in terminal decline, there is little stopping the euro from becoming the world's premier reserve currency, argues Wolfgang Münchau in a March commentary for EuroIntelligence.

China and the 13 countries using the euro will "take comprehensive measures" to "avoid big swings in currency movements" and contribute to "an orderly adjustment of global imbalances", according to a statement issued by the Chinese central bank after a meeting with the EU's top finance officials.

China should allow its currency to rise more quickly in order to help Europe and the US restore some of their industrial competitiveness and limit growing trade deficits, said finance ministers from the world's seven leading industrialised nations.

In this paper for the Bruegel think-tank, Alan Ahearne (Bruegel), Bill Cline (PIIE), Kyung Tae Lee (KIEP), Yung Chul Park (KIEP), Jean Pisani-Ferry (Bruegel) and John Williamson (PIIE) assess how to avert a potential financial crisis via an orderly reduction in the large and unsustainable global current-account imbalances.

Eurozone finance ministers say that there is no need to act on the recent surge of their currency against the US dollar despite French fears that the current situation could dent economic growth.