Trading Currency
In 1998, Cuba announced that it would replace the US dollar with the euro as its official currency for the purposes of international trading. On 1 December 2002, North Korea did the same. (Its internal currency, the wŏn, is not convertible and thus cannot be used to purchase foreign goods. The euro also enjoys popularity domestically, especially among elites and resident foreigners.) Syria followed suit in 2006.
In 2000, President of Iraq Saddam Hussein began the sale of his country's oil denominated in euros rather than US dollars since the majority of Iraqi oil trade was with the EU, India and China rather than the United States. Several other oil producing countries stated they would follow suit. But when Iraq was invaded in 2003, the new US administration immediately switched all sales of oil back to the US dollar. Since then, Iran has maintained its policy of demanding euros from the sale of oil towards Europe and Asia, and plans to set up an oil exchange denominated in euro.
Read more about this topic: International Status And Usage Of The Euro
Famous quotes containing the words trading and/or currency:
“His farm was “grounds,” and not a farm at all;
His house among the local sheds and shanties
Rose like a factor’s at a trading station.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)