World currency unit intended to rival U.S. dollar for supremacy

clipped from www.financialpost.com Jameson Berkow, Financial Post · Friday, May 28, 2010 A new currency is intended to challenge the U.S. dollar as the world's foremost reserve currency. The WOCU, short for world currency unit, was actually launched by London-based WDX Organization in September 2009, but only seems to be gaining recognition now. Its value is determined as a derivative of the exchange rates of the world's top 20 currencies, as measured by GDP, in order to reduce the risk associated with exchange rate fluctuations. The new currency is similar to the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights (SDR), which the IMF uses as a reserve asset to supplement the currency reserves of its member states. Both Russia and China have been pushing for the world to switch to a new currency.

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China ready to end dollar peg

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk The head of China’s central bank has given the strongest signal yet that the country will move away from pegging its currency to the dollar, but he said any changes would be gradual. At the annual session of the legislative National People’s Congress in Beijing, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the days of the “special yuan” policy were numbered. He described the dollar peg as a “temporary” response to the global financial crisis, but gave no timescale for any change in policy. The currency has been pegged at about 6.83 yuan per dollar since July 2008. Mr Obama told Bloomberg last month. “My goal over the course of the next year is for China to recognize that it is also in their interest to allow their currency to appreciate because, frankly, they have got a potentially overheating economy.” When China eventually abandons the peg, the country will have to manage its exit strategy carefully

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