In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, 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.
Very troubling article, but I haven't noticed anything on this in the WSJ.
I would think it would be unlikely that China would want to damage a currency in which they hold so much debt. Nor would I think that Japan would want to undermine the currency of a nation where they export so many goods and also hold a considerable amount of debt.
This should also have been a major topic at the G-20 but I never read anything about it being an issue.