Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran proposed that members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) use their own currencies in trade with each other.
“Iran’s suggestion is to use the currencies of the SCO states in transactions between members of the organization,” press tv quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying during his address to the SCO summit in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe on Thursday.
“Such a measure will help maintain and strengthen the value of the foreign exchange reserves of member states. The organization can also devise a long term plan to study the feasibility of using a single currency in the future,” he added.
Ahmadinejad also suggested establishing an SCO bank to facilitate monetary transactions between members of the organization.
The Iranian president pointed out that international economic systems currently in place, are not efficient enough to resolve global challenges.
Ahmadinejad touched on the problems currently facing the world including the food shortage, inflation, poverty and market instability and said that the US economic slowdown had spread to other parts of the world because Washington had tried to manipulate global markets to save its weakening economy.
The SCO summit kicked off on Thursday, bringing together leaders from permanent member of the organization such as China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in addition to senior officials from observer states like Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia.
The summit is expected to cover issues such as trade cooperation between member states, the Georgian conflict, new SCO memberships, and the Iranian nuclear issue.
