Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that OPEC's member countries have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating US dollar, which he called a "worthless piece of paper."
His comments at the end of a rare OPEC summit exposed fissures within the 13-member oil cartel -- especially after US ally Saudi Arabia was reluctant to mention concerns about the falling dollar in the summit's final declaration.
The hardline Iranian leader's comments also highlighted the growing challenge that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, faces from Iran and its ally Venezuela within the organization.
"They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," Ahmadinejad told reporters after the close of the summit in the Saudi capital. He blamed US President George W. Bush's policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries.
"All the participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency," Ahmadinejad said. "Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the US dollar ... to form the basis of our oil trade."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez echoed this sentiment on Sunday on the sidelines of the summit.
"The empire of the dollar has to end," Chavez said.
"Don't you see how the dollar has been in free-fall without a parachute?" he said, calling the euro a better option.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah had tried to direct the focus of the summit toward studying the effect of the oil industry on the environment, but he continuously faced challenges from Ahmadinejad and Chavez.
Iran and Venezuela have proposed trading oil in a basket of currencies to replace the historic link to the dollar, but they had not been able to generate support from enough fellow OPEC members -- many of whom are staunch US allies.
Yesterday the US dollar continued to fall against the yen after a group of six Arab nations said they would consider changing their fixed exchange rates to the US currency.
The six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will discuss a proposal next month to revalue their currencies, Secretary General Abdul Rahman al-Attiyah said on Sunday.
The dollar declined against eight of the 16 most-active currencies on speculation a US government report today would show housing starts fell to a 14-year low.
"The U.S. dollar is weaker across the board on the talk of a move away from the dollar peg," said Sue Trinh, a senior currency strategist in Sydney with RBC Capital Markets, the second-most accurate forecaster in the second quarter in Bloomberg news surveys. "The bearish dollar sentiment will continue with the housing data."
The dollar fell to ¥110.47 early yesterday in London from ¥111.09 late in New York on Friday. The US currency was at US$1.4666 per euro from US$1.4662 late last week. The euro traded at ¥162.04 from ¥162.86. The dollar may find support, an area where buy orders are clustered, at US$1.4685 per euro, Trinh said.
The Gulf oil-producing nations are under pressure to scrap the pegs after the dollar weakened to a record low against an index of six major currencies.
The difference between the price of the Saudi Arabian riyal and the cost of buying it in a year using forward contracts has widened 10-fold since last month, closing at 3.68 riyal on Friday. The riyal spot rate was quoted at 3.7235 by BNP Paribas Bahrain yesterday, down from a close of 3.7295 on Friday.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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