ASEAN to use own money

ASEAN to use own money

MANILA (AFP): Southeast Asian leaders have agreed to increase intra-regional trade using their own currencies as a measure to minimize the effects of the strong dollar, President Fidel Ramos said Wednesday.

"As a basic decision, we agreed that we must do more intra- ASEAN trade where the currency to be used is not necessarily the dollar or the yen but our own national currencies," Ramos told a news conference.

He said trading would be based on the "comparative values" of the regional currencies, which have been severely weakened compared to the U.S. dollar.

Ramos was speaking a day after returning from Koala Lumpur, where he met with other leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which groups Brunei, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The ASEAN leaders also held an expanded summit with their counterparts from Japan, China and South Korea with the Asian financial crisis high on the agenda.