Malaysia's prime minister said China and his country are considering conducting their trade in Chinese yuan and Malaysian ringgit, joining a rising number of nations thinking of phasing out the dollar.
'We can consider whether we can use local currencies to facilitate trade financing between our two countries,' Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak told reporters at a briefing Wednesday after meeting with China's premier, Wen Jiabao.
'What worries us is that the [U.S.] deficit is being financed by printing more money,' Mr. Najib said. 'That is what is happening. The Treasury in the United States is printing more notes.'
China has been promoting the idea of replacing the dollar as the global currency, suggesting that a basket of currencies less linked to the fate of one economy would make more sense. It also has been talking about using the yuan for trade settlements, starting gradually in the region and then expanding farther abroad.
On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged China to move toward a more-flexible exchange rate for the yuan. If the yuan were to strengthen, that would increase China's domestic buying power and reduce the country's dependence on exports.
Chinese trading partner Brazil is also looking at reducing its exposure to the dollar by conducting its trade with China in yuan.
Despite countries' growing interest in adopting the yuan -- fostered by China's growing economic clout and worries about the U.S. government's deficit spending -- many experts agree it would take a long time to liberalize China's currency enough to be used as a global benchmark. Right now it's difficult to buy and sell yuan outside China.
Malaysia's Mr. Najib, speaking on the second day of a four-day visit to Beijing, timed to coincide with the 35th anniversary of diplomatic ties established by Mr. Najib's father, said the two countries signed a series of framework agreements meant to facilitate trade and investment.
Mr. Najib, who is also finance minister, has been struggling to revive Malaysia's export-dependent economy. In April, he unveiled measures to liberalize the country's finance sector, allowing greater foreign investment and rolling back some of the decades-old preferential policies granted to elevate the country's majority Muslim Malay population, which helped them compete with the ethnic Chinese.
Last week, the government sharply revised down its annual gross-domestic-product forecast to a contraction of between 4% and 5%, versus an earlier estimate of a 1% decline. Analysts now predict the nation's fiscal deficit could rise to 8% of GDP, the highest level in a decade.
But Mr. Najib ruled out more stimulus spending. 'We've introduced one of the biggest in the world -- as a percentage of GDP it's 9%. But there's a limit to which we can introduce fiscal stimulus,' he said.
對於很多想知道自己的股票還值多少錢的通用汽車（General Motors Corp.）個人股東來說，答案看起來非常悽慘。
華盛頓Baker Hostetler LLP合伙人、重組業務負責人沃克曼（Donald Workman）說，在破產分配中，普通股股東通常會被排除在外。他們是優先級最低的，排在債券持有者和優先股股東之後。
沃克曼說，大部分情況下，股東們什麼也拿不到。通用汽車的破產申請中說，公司有1,720億美元的負債和820億美元的資產。他說，對股東來說沒什麼價值。
通用汽車周一歷史性的破產申請使之成為涉及資產規模第二大的工業破產案，僅次於2002年WorldCom的破產，為這家具有象徵意義的美國汽車生產商的鴻篇巨製劃上了句號。
根據政府的計劃，新通用10%的股權將由現有債券持有者所有，17.5% 由全美汽車工人聯合會（UAW）的一隻醫療基金所有，12.5%由加拿大政府所有，60%由美國政府所有。歐巴馬總統稱美國政府是通用汽車一個"不情願的"股東。
美國財政部也在向債券所有者提供擔保，允許他們在債券換股票得到10%的股權的基礎上，再買進至多15%的新通用股權。
財政部發言人證實說，根據這樣的分配，舊通用的股東不會獲得新通用的股份。
通用汽車發言人在電子郵件中拒絕置評，只是說普通股通常會在公司破產程序中損失剩餘的價值。
波士頓金融諮詢公司Mayflower Advisors執行合伙人格萊澤（Lawrence Glazer）說，通用汽車現有股票不太可能在破產期間保留任何價值。他說，對很多投資者來說，這些股票作為稅損的價值將高於作為股票投資的價值。以致於如果以後股市上漲，投資者可以用在通用汽車的投資"對衝"未來的上漲。
在周二開盤前，紐約證券交易所暫停通用汽車現有股票和其他10隻相關股票的交易。從市場開盤時起，通用汽車股票以新的股票代碼GMGMQ開始在場外交易。代碼中的"Q"表示公司牽涉進破產程序。
場外交易粉單市場（Pink OTC Markets Inc.）首席執行長庫爾森（Cromwell Coulson）說，在破產計劃被法官確認之前，該股將繼續在場外交易。該股於周二下午4點報於每股0.61美元。
他說，在破產法官確認計劃之後，該股將被取消，股票代碼將作廢。他說，在計劃確認之前，破產公司的股價通常會波動。庫爾森說，通用汽車股東周二拋售股票，而買家可能包括預測計劃確認前股價會上升的投機者，或補空倉的賣空者。
從6月8日起，通用汽車將被從道瓊工業股票平均價格指數成份股中剔除，此前該公司作為成份股已有80多年的歷史。技術公司思科系統（Cisco Systems Inc.）將取代通用汽車成為新的成份股。
責任編輯：vivien