Brazil: important to discuss dollar reserve issue

Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:52pm EDT
BRASILIA, March 26 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday that it was important to discuss a Russian proposal to replace the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency.
"It's a valid and pertinent issue; we should discuss it," Lula told reporters at a news conference in Brasilia with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, without giving further details.
However, a government source cautioned that Brazil was unlikely to back the initiative at next month's Group of 20 summit in London in order to avoid souring relations with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.
Russia has proposed the creation of a new reserve currency, to be issued by international financial institutions, in the text of its proposals to the G20 summit published earlier this month. The G20 groups big developed and developing countries.
Since Russia's proposal, the debate about the dollar's status as the world's main reserve currency has intensified. Earlier this week, China outlined how the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Right (SDR) could take over the role.
On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the dollar would remain the world's reserve currency for a long time but expressed openness to the expanded use of SDRs.
The Brazilian government official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that while Brazil thought the Russia's proposal was "reasonable," it would not openly back it, given Lula's attempts to forge closer ties with Obama.
"It is bad for Brazil to take a position when the presidents of both countries instructed their finance ministers to align positions at the G20 meeting," the source, who is close to the talks, told Reuters.
Lula met Obama earlier this month in Washington. (Reporting by Raymond Colitt, Natuza Nery and Ana Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)