Musik @ Centrifugen

Här följer länkar och sammanställning av länder som omvärderat sina valutor på ett eller annat sätt i finanskrisens spår.

Vitryssland

1. Belarus allowed its ruble to slide 10% against the dollar Tuesday, a day after promising not to let its currency devalue, even as economists said the move isn’t likely to solve authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s deepening economic difficulties. Belarus has lost 20% of its foreign currency reserves this year after a sharp rise in the price of Russian oil imports and a boost in government spending left the country with a large trade deficit.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471904576230231486549722.html

2. Belarus National Bank devalued the Belarus ruble by 56.3% Monday, publishing the new exchange rates on its website. The new exchange rate of 4,930 Belarus rubles to the dollar becomes official from Tuesday, compared with 3,155 rubles to the dollar Monday. The new rate, although significantly below the previous one, is still not as low as the ”black market” exchange rate, where the cash exchange migrated amid the country’s severe shortage of foreign currency. Cash-strapped Belarus hopes to secure a $3 billion rescue loan from the Moscow-led economic union of ex-Soviet states and a $3 billion advance payment from Russia for future food and other deliveries from Belarus. However, Russia wants to provide $3 billion in equal installments over three years.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576341310527864174.html

Kuba

1. Cuba is devaluing its currency by about 8% compared to the US dollar as part of efforts to revive the economy. The hard-currency convertible peso used mostly by tourists and foreign firms will now be on a par with the dollar. The central bank said the aim was to boost exports and local production. The move will increase the value of remittances received by many Cubans with relatives in the US, and is intended to make the island more affordable for tourists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12739041

Nordkorea:

1. In an alleged bid to curb inflation and suppress its growing black market, North Korea implemented a currency revaluation on Monday, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/6700341/North-Korea-sharply-revalues-its-currency.html

2. All cash transactions in North Korea have been frozen after the Government’s shock decision to revalue the won currency in an effort to crack down on the country’s burgeoning free-market economy. In the capital, Pyongyang, today only the few shops and restaurants permitted to trade in foreign currencies, patronised by the privileged elite and the city’s small foreign population, were open for business.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6940482.ece

3. North Korea has executed a senior official blamed for currency reforms that damaged the already ailing economy and potentially affected the succession, a news agency in South Korea reported today. Pak Nam-gi was killed by firing squad last week, said Yonhap, citing multiple sources. The Workers party chief for planning and the economy had not been seen in public since January. The 77-year-old was put to death as ”a son of a bourgeois conspiring to infiltrate the ranks of revolutionaries to destroy the national economy”, the agency said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/18/north-korean-executed-currency-reform

Venezuela:

1. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced a currency devaluation for the first time since 2005. Chavez says Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar, will now have two government-set rates depending on the use, either 2.60 to the dollar for transactions deemed priorities by the government or 4.30 to the dollar for other transactions.The currency’s official exchange rate has been held steady by the government at 2.15 bolivars to the dollar since 2005.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9D3T53O0.htm

2. Venezuela will devalue its ”strong bolívar” currency on New Year’s Day, the government said Thursday, the second such devaluation within a year and at least the fifth major devaluation during the decade-long populist government of President Hugo Chávez. News of the devaluation came just after the central bank said the Venezuelan economy contracted 1.9% in 2010, the second consecutive year of declining output in the oil-rich nation after a 3.3% decline in 2009. Both pieces of news suggest Mr. Chávez is having an increasingly difficult time balancing his populist policies with economic reality, according to economists. His government’s widespread nationalizations of private industry have sapped economic growth, while public spending has sparked inflation that the government has tried to contain by measures such as price controls.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909904576052141076137366.html

Vietnam:

1. Vietnam’s central bank devalued its currency and raised interest rates to rein in accelerating inflation and a widening trade deficit that is eroding confidence in the dong.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGrwXLgeGDmo

och här är en av orsakerna bakom devalveringen…
2. Vietnam, where many people see gold as a safe haven against economic uncertainty, has ordered public gold-trading floors shut by March 31 because they rest on a “fragile foundation”. The order affects about 20 gold-trading houses operated by banks and other firms, which have been running for more than two years, the state-run Vietnam News reported. Retailing of gold jewellery will still be allowed, it said.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\03\story_3-1-2010_pg5_20