Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
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.
Could Islamic banking consolidation bring more uniformity?
Mohsin Khan, former head of the Middle East department at the International Monetary Fund, says the Islamic banking industry could benefit from consolidation by reducing the number of sharia boards, or groups of Islamic scholars, that each bank employs in the Middle East to decide whether or not investments comply with Islamic law. I spoke with Khan earlier this week ahead of the 2009 Reuters Islamic Banking and Finance Summit that kicks-off on April 13th in Dubai, Bahrain, Kuala Lumpur and London. Click here to listen:
Kahn on consolidation from Reuters TV on Vimeo.
