The academics from Korea, China and Japan met in Seoul for an international seminar on exchange-rate cooperation between Korea, China and Japan, which they said was badly needed.

Uri Party lawmaker Chung Duck-koo, who was head of the organizing team committee said, "The idea of a unified Asian currency is not, in the end, a wild dream... We must hurry discussion on exchange rate cooperation by holding regular meetings of the Korean, Chinese and Japanese finance ministers and central bank governors."

The director of China’s Academy of Social Sciences Institute of World Economics and Politics, Yu Yongding, said, "We must develop cooperation focused on the Chiang Mai Initiative, which allows the ASEAN +3 states to use each other’s foreign exchange reserves when shocks like foreign exchange crises strike, and establish an Asian regional body to carry out a role like that played by the European Commission.”

Prof. Kawai Masahiro of Tokyo University, an advisor to the Asia Development Bank president, said there was also a need to invigorate the Asian bond market so Asian nations can use their vast foreign exchange reserves more effectively within the region instead of buying U.S. government bonds.

An expert with the Korea Institute of Finance (KIF), Choi Gong-pil joined Yoon Deok-ryong of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in calling for an “Asia Currency Unit” based on a common basket to stabilize Asian exchange rates and use it in regional trade and asset management.

Prof. Barry Eichengreen of the University of California at Berkeley proposed Asian nations adopt a dual currency system where they circulate both the national currency and the Asia Currency Unit simultaneously.

(englishnews@chosun.com )