In a graphic illustration of the new world order,Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France tostop using the US currency for oil trading
By Robert Fisk
In the most profound financial change in recentMiddle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China,Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, movinginstead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen andChinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned fornations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, AbuDhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
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The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China’s extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America’s power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.