【分析解答题】

IfAsian policy makers have a grand vision, it is that someday people from Japan andChina to Malaysia and Myanmar will pay for groceries using the same currency. The idea of a singleEastAsian currency will be debated this week at theAsianDevelopmentBank’s annual meeting in the South Korean resort island of Jeju, where aEuropeanCentralBank board member, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, will share withAsian finance ministers "lessons" from a 50-year journey that has led to 12European nations sharing the euro. Should the countries ofEastAsia aim for their own "Asian dollar"？ The rationale for a single currency is simple. For exporters in oneAsian country selling to importers in another, being bald inAsian dollars would mean their profits were protected no matter what happened to the U. S. currency.Consumers would benefit from easier price comparisons, and travelers would save money by not having to change their currency from country to country.EastAsia is home to a third of the world’s population and is its fastest-growing region. The WorldBank estimates thatEastAsian economies will collectively expand 6.3 percent this year. The region’s central banks hold $ 2 trillion of foreign currency reserves, which, if pooled, would make anAsian dollar a tough target for currency speculators to pull down.

A、singleEastAsian currency would require an accord similar to theEuropean Union’s Stability and Growth pact, which would require governments to live within their means — a tall order for countries such as the Philippines that are plagued by chronic budget deficits. Monetary cooperation could eventually lead to a single currency. Still, ifEastAsia wants to followEurope, it must speed up efforts for freer movement of goods and people across national boundaries. Then will come the painful part: trying to getAsian states to accept a unifying agency along the lines of theEuropeanCentralBank. TheAsian dollar may not be here soon.But to say it will never arrive is to underestimate the power of progress.