OPEC could switch the pricing of oil from dollars into euros within a decade, secretary-general Abdullah al-Badri told a weekly magazine.
The organization could adopt the euro to combat the decline of the US dollar, Badri told the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), published in London.
"Maybe we can price the oil in the euro. It can be done, but it will take time," he said.
Badri told MEED the change could happen within a decade.
MEED said that OPEC is under pressure from its members, which have seen their earnings decline sharply since 2000 because of its use of the dollar. The US currency has fallen 44 percent in value against the euro during the period.
The publication of Badri's remarks coincided with the euro rising against the dollar on the foreign exchanges on Friday. The euro peaked at US$1.4547 at around 1800 GMT, though it has since weakened.
"In oil exchanges in New York, Singapore or Dubai, you can see the currency is the euro or the yen," Badri said. "But as long as we see the final sign in dollar, that means the pricing is in dollars.
"It took two world wars and more than 50 years for the dollar to become the dominant currency. Now we are seeing another strong currency coming into the [frame], which is the euro."
Some OPEC members, notably Iran and Venezuela, have been calling for the group to study the declining dollar's effect on their economies. Iran has already begun pricing most of its oil in euros.
MEED said that the pricing of oil in dollars is a sensitive topic. Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal warned OPEC late last year that the dollar could plunge if OPEC publicly discussed abandoning it.
On Tuesday, Badri told reporters in London that several oil exporters were selling in dollars but buying other commodities in euros, calling the latter a strong currency.
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
RSS