World Bank calls for a new system that include RMB and gold

Robert Zoellick, World Bank's president since 2007, calls for a new gold standard following a "Bretton Woods II" system of floating currencies that has held since the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime broke down in 1971.

Zoellick, a former US Treasury official, calls for a system that "is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pounds and a renminbi that moves towards internationalisation and then an open capital account." The system "should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values.

Mr. Zoellick's remarks came ahead of this week's meeting of government heads in South Korea.

The original Bretton Woods system, instituted in 1945, comprised fixed but adjustable exchange rates linked to the value of gold.