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![image: [ Future trade between south-east Asian nations may be in local currency ]](/olmedia/60000/images/_60859_money_300.jpg)
One idea being discussed by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) is using local currencies to pay for trade among member nations.
For most of the last 50 years, south-east Asian nations have used the US dollar as their base for export trade, even with other Asean members.
It has been suggested that the regional central banks would act as clearing houses for trade payments and would offset each others' receivables and pay the difference in dollars.
But the BBC's Jakarta correspondent reports that any benefits of the proposal will be limited because most of the region's trade is still with Japan, the United States and the European Union.
Another proposal - to use the relatively healthy Singapore dollar as a peg for the region's currencies - has been dismissed as unworkable.
Singapore says its economy is too small to support countries like Indonesia, the worst-hit country, currently in the grip of mass bankruptcies, soaring prices, food shortages and riots.
Analysts say the greatest problem still facing Asean countries is the large private-sector debt which has left many companies on the verge of bankruptcy.
But that is already being dealt with through local negotiations between the borrowers and bankers.
The Asean group of nations comprises Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
US envoy in Indonesia
The US envoy Walter Mondale arrives in Jakarta at the weekend with a brief from President Clinton enabling him to talk on political and economic issues.
A White House spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said: "He's going there to encourage both economic and political reforms to help deal with the economic crisis."
The crisis began last year when Thailand's currency, the baht, plunged after the government allowed it to depreciate.
Other currencies in the region followed, plunging financial markets into turmoil and some countries into near bankruptcy.
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