The countries' leaders — Brazil's new president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Argentine leader Alberto Fernández — said a common currency could help to boost South American trade, in a joint statement published in the newspaper"We intend to overcome barriers to our exchanges, simplify and modernise rules, and promote the use of local currencies," they said.
"We also decided to advance discussions about a common South American currency that could be used for both financial and commercial trade flows, reducing operational costs and our external vulnerability," Lula and Fernández added. The move comes as countries increasingly look to"de-dollarize", or move away from using the greenback, the dominant currency used in commerce.they were working on a gold-backed"stablecoin" for use in trade between the two countries.
Brazil wants to call the joint currency the"sur" and the two countries are planning to eventually allow other South American countries to use it to create the world's second-largest currency bloc, according to a