著者

小林 博

出版者

島根県立大学

雑誌

北東アジア研究 (ISSN:13463810)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2, pp.89-108, 2001-10

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1. One of the main causes of the Asian currency and financial crisis is that many East Asian countries had adopted the de facto dollar peg system before the crisis. This indicates that the exchange rate system is one of the important factors for the financial and economic stability in East Asia. In this paper, the future exchange rate system of East Asia will be examined. 2. The extent of internationalization of the RMB and the Japanese yen will have the significant effect on the future exchange rate system in East Asia. For this reason, the possibility of future internationalization of the RMB and the Japanese yen will be analyzed before the future exchange rate system in East Asia is discussed. 3. In order for a currency of some country to become truly international, there are conditions to be satisfied by the country and the followings are the fundamental ones. (1) The economy is highly developed and the size of economy is one of the largest in the world. (2) Trade volume is also one of the largest in the world. (3) Money market is highly developed and the size of market is one of the largest in the World. 4. In the case of the RMB, China will satisfy the first and the second conditions mentioned above relatively in the near future if China maintains the current rate of economic and trade expansion. However, regarding the third condition, that is, the development of money market, it seems extremely difficult for China to satisfy the conditions because China is faced with many difficult problems such as bad debt problem of state-owned commercial banks and development of capital market. For this reason, the internationalization of the RMB will be very limited one. 5. There has been very little progress as to the internationalization of the Japanese yen. The fact that the Tokyo money market is inconvenient for foreigners has been the main reason for the limited progress. In the case of deutsche mark, the existence of the European Monetary System (EMS) helped it to become key currency in Western Europe. Unless Tokyo money market becomes truly international, and unless the EMS-typed monetary system is introduced in East Asia, the progress of internationalization of the Japanese yen could not be expected. 6. After the currency and financial crisis, many East Asian countries moved to independently floating exchange rate system from the de facto dollar peg system. However, the current system is not the ideal one, and new system should be sought. When we envisage the future exchange rate system, the following points should be recognized. (1) In the case of East Asian countries, the trade partners are diversified. In addition to other East Asian countries, Japan, the United States and the Euro Area are very important partners. (2) The bilateral exchange rates of the U.S. dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen are very volatile. It is necessary that the adverse effects of this volatility on the East Asian countries is mitigated. (3) Stable exchange rate relationship among East Asian countries should be maintained. 7. In order to reduce the adverse effects of volatility of the major currencies, and to maintain the stable relationship among the East Asian currencies, common basket peg system is suitable. In this case, currency basket consists of the U.S. dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen. 8. However, it is almost impossible for East Asian countries to adopt common basket peg system from the beginning as the economies of East Asian countries are very heterogeneous. Consequently, it is practical that each East Asian country adopts individual basket peg system at the initial stage and then move to the common basket peg system. Furthermore, if the common basket peg system is firmly established, it is not impossible that East Asia will have the common currency. 9. Though ASEAN countries, China, Korea and Japan agreed to establish a system of swap arrangements (The Chiang Mai Initiative), there is no cooperative arrangement in the field of exchange rate system. It is desirable that East Asian countries establish the longer term scenario of regional monetary system including the exchange rate system. Strong political will among East Asian countries to develop the regional cooperation is the key factor for the materialization of the system.