 |
| illustration |
Dr Mahathir Mohamad today again pushed for the gold dinar to be used by Muslim countries, saying the United States dollar was sometimes unstable. (more)
The prime minister said most countries had to use the US dollar as international currency, but added that it was “sometimes strong, sometimes weak”.
The greenback, Mahathir said, can hamper trade, but gold has a certain value for all countries in the world.
“If we use gold as standard, we can call our currency by whatever name we want, but they must relate to the value of gold in your country.
“So, if you know the value of gold in your country and the value of gold of your trading partner, we know how much gold is being traded.
“That is the gold dinar standard, that was what was proposed, so we will look at it carefully,” he told reporters after the closing of the Kuala Lumpur Summit.
Gold was once used to back fiat currencies. It was also used as the world reserve currency through most of the 20th century. The US used the gold standard until President Richard Nixon discontinued it in 1971.
Earlier, in his speech, Mahathir said he suggested to participants at the summit to revisit the idea of trading using the gold dinar and barter.
“We are seriously looking into this and we hope that we will be able to find a mechanism to put it into effect,” he said.
Post a Comment