Gold dinar for trade: Dr M says KL Summit participants seriously looking into it
Since 2001, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has advocated for the use of the gold dinar for trade as a means to the currency war but for more almost two decades, the measure remained just as a proposal.
However, at the conclusion of the Kuala Lumpur Summit today, Mahathir said the summit's participants are now seriously looking into it.
"Our discussions also touched on the subject of currency and the way we trade with each other...
Since 2001, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has advocated for the use of the gold dinar for international trade as a means to combat the currency war but for more almost two decades, the measure remained just as a proposal.
However, at the conclusion of the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 today, Mahathir said the summit's participants were now seriously looking into it.
"Our discussions also touched on the subject of currency and the way we trade with each other.
"I have suggested that we revisit the idea of trading using the gold dinar and barter trade among us.
"We are seriously looking into this, and we hope that we will be able to find a mechanism to put it into effect," he said during his closing remarks at the conference.
Some 20 Muslim countries attended the summit including Turkey, Iran and Qatar.
Muslim countries aligned with Saudi Arabia had snubbed the gathering. Saudi Arabia had accused the summit of being an attempt to set up a platform to rival the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Countries, something which Mahathir denied.
On the gold dinar, Mahathir had previously said that under the current system with the US dollar as the reserve currency, there was a tendency for countries to devalue their currencies to compete in trade.
He said the race to devalue currencies would worsen the global economy and cripple economic growth.
As such, Mahathir had proposed the use of gold dinar which he said had an intrinsic value.
However, he said the use of gold dinar should only be for international trade and not replace domestic currencies.
At his post-summit press conference today, Mahathir said the implementation of the Islamic gold dinar should be studied carefully.
"This is because today we are hampered by having to use just one currency for international trade, the US dollar," he said.
Mahathir said he will meet with Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to discuss the matter.
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