If Asian policy makers have a grand vision, it is that someday people from Japan and China to Malaysia and Myanmar will pay for groceries using the same currency. The idea of a single East Asian currency will be debated this week at the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting in the South Korean resort island of Jeju, where a European Central Bank board member, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, will share with Asian finance ministers "lessons" from a 50-year journey that has led to 12 European nations sharing the euro. Should the countries of East Asia aim for their own "Asian dollar"？ The rationale for a single currency is simple. For exporters in one Asian country selling to importers in another, being bald in Asian dollars would mean their profits were protected no matter what happened to the U. S. currency. Consumers would benefit from easier price comparisons, and travelers would save money by not having to change their currency from country to country. East Asia is home to a third of the world’s population and is its fastest-growing region. The World Bank estimates that East Asian economies will collectively expand 6.3 percent this year. The region’s central banks hold $ 2 trillion of foreign currency reserves, which, if pooled, would make an Asian dollar a tough target for currency speculators to pull down. A single East Asian currency would require an accord similar to the European Union’s Stability and Growth pact, which would require governments to live within their means — a tall order for countries such as the Philippines that are plagued by chronic budget deficits. Monetary cooperation could eventually lead to a single currency. Still, if East Asia wants to follow Europe, it must speed up efforts for freer movement of goods and people across national boundaries. Then will come the painful part: trying to get Asian states to accept a unifying agency along the lines of the European Central Bank. The Asian dollar may not be here soon. But to say it will never arrive is to underestimate the power of progress.
