Raw Japan
Slices of Japanese business, politics and life
from Summit Notebook:
The Esperanto currency
Hiroshi Watanabe, president of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, saw his share of dollar buying intervention during decades at the nation's finance ministry. But the market veteran says despite prevalent talk recently, a shift away from the greenback as the world's reserve currency may be great in theory, but like the language of Esperanto short on daily practitioners.
"Esperanto is a very good language, but no community uses it in its daily life, " Watanabe told the Reuters Japan Investment Summit.
"That's the same situation that applies to the currency... I don't see any other currency that can take the position to replace the key U.S. dollar."
China, Russia and Brazil intend to push at this week's Group of Eight summit for a new global reserve currency as an alternative to the dollar.
from Summit Notebook:
Asia still a wealth of wealth players
A few years ago, domestic and international financial players were chomping at the bit to lure Mrs. Watanabe's millions of yen or fellow Asians' yuan, won or dollar holdings from their futons or equal-interest savings accounts.
The global financial crisis in the last year has sparked a rejigging of foreign institutions' expectations about Asian wealth and their own ability to attract it, with some opting out of the game altogether.
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