MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Vice President elect urges Latam countries to use local currencies

With local currencies comes a bigger autonomy says Boudou

Argentine Economy Minister and Vice-President elect Amado Boudou urged Latin American countries to increase the use of local currencies in regional trade instead of depending on other currency such as the dollar.

“How would our countries be doing today without presidents such as Néstor Kirchner or Lula da Silva, who opposed the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) back in 2005?,” he said.

Boudou said the decision to reject the US Bush administration proposal was “historic” and assured that “its importance will be noticed in hindsight.”

The minister assured that “all Latin American countries have become aware of the need be part of a Big Homeland by removing the conditions that made them all fail in the past.”

As a way of stepping in the right direction, the Economy Minister stressed on the need to “increase the use of local currencies so we can have a bigger autonomy.”

Turning to local currencies “will be a cultural chance” without having to depend on the dollar or the Euro, currencies considered to be “value reserves,” while we see that their countries, if they need to make any changes, they do them.

“In the beginning, the international crisis seemed to be financial, which affected the economy, when in fact it was the other way round,” he said.

“For the last nine or ten years, politics in Latin America have strengthened, and this allowed for us to improve the economy and then finance,” Boudou explained.