Latin American countries to introduce common currency

Countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) agreed to introduce regional common currency, the sucre.

During the ALBA summit on Dec. 13, nine member countries including Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela announced the introduction of new virtual currency in Jan. 2010. The plan is similar to the European introduction of ecu, precursor of the euro, in 1979. Sucre will be the virtual currency used to manage debt between the countries while reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar. On Dec. 12, before the official multilateral agreement, Cuba agreed to pay for a shipment of Venezuelan rice in sucres. Cuban President, Raul Castro, quoted by the Chinese Global Times, said the agreement is aimed to, "Ease the negative repercussions of the current global economic crisis and is the chief example of our integration dream for Latin America and the Caribbean." The sucre may be turned in to a hard currency in the future, sources state.