ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Yahoo Finance
18April2011 12:08pmEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: China and four other leading high-growth economies have taken landmark steps toward lowering the importance of the dollar in international financial transactions — part of a seminal shift in the move towards a multicurrency reserve and trading system.
Mind you, you wouldn't get an idea of anything dramatic from reading the official Chinese press on the conclusion of a summit meeting of the so-called BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in the southern resort twin of Sanya in southern China last week.
"Leaders call for peace and prosperity" was the front-page headline in the China Daily. Stirring stiff. Even more striking was the prominent story the previous day that China's President Hu Jintao and visiting Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff had agreed to quicken trade procedures for "gelatin, corn, tobacco leaf, bovine embryos and semen." At least we know there's no holding back the Chinese rhetorical flourishes on these issues. (read full report)