The purpose to create a new data of Asian Monetary Unit with ASEAN 10 plus 3 (Japan, China and South Korea) plus 3 (Australia, New Zealand and India) - AMU-wide
The Asian Monetary Unit (AMU), which has been created as the joint project of 21st century COE project of Hitotsubashi University and RIETI, is a common currency basket composed of 13 East Asian currencies, such as ASEAN 10 plus Japan, China and South Korea. These data have started to be published on the website of RIETI since September 2005. After 4 years passed, a common currency basket composed of 13 AMU currencies plus three another countries, Australia, New Zealand and India, which are strongly connected with Asian countries, is newly created as "AMU-wide". The AMU-wide, which is a common currency basket composed of wider range of currencies, will be expected to utilize as a surveillance indicator corresponding to the extensive regional economies.
The calculation methodology of the AMU-wide and AMU-wide Deviation Indicators are same as those of the AMU. The benchmark period is defined as the following: the total trade balance of member countries, the total trade balance of the member countries (excluding Japan) with Japan, and the total trade balance of member countries with the rest of world should be relatively close to zero.
Table 1, which shows the trade balance of the 16 Asian and Oceania countries between 1990 and 2007, indicate that the figure of intra-regional trade balance was the smallest in 1999, and the second smallest in 2000. The figures of other balances also were not large in these periods. Accordingly, we decide 1999 and 2000 as the benchmark period of the AMU-wide. The benchmark exchange rates are calculated as the average of daily exchange rates in 1999 and 2000.
| Table 1. | Trade Balance of ASEAN10 + 3(Japan, Korea and China*) + 3 (Australia, New Zealand and India) |
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(Notes) |
All figures are calculated by authors. Trade data from DOT(IMF). |
* |
We use DOTS data of "China,P.R.:Mainland" and "China,P.R.:Hong Kong" as data of China. |
** |
The trade account with Japan is the total amount of the trade accounts of 15 countries with Japan. |
Similar to the way to decide the basket weights of the AMU, the basket weights of the AMU-wide are calculated based on the arithmetic shares of intra-regional trade volumes and GDP measured at PPP (average of latest three years). Table 2 shows the AMU weights as well as trade volume, GDP measured at PPP, arithmetic shares, and the Benchmark Exchange Rates.
| Table 2. | AMU-wide shares and weights of Asian Currencies |
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* |
The trade volume is calsulated as the average of export and import volumes in 2005, 2006 and 2007 taken from DOTS(IMF). |
** |
GDP measured at PPP is the average of GDP measured at PPP in 2005, 2006 and 2007 taken from the World Development Report, World Bank. |
*** |
The Benchmark eschange rate ($-euro/Currency) is the average of the daily exchange rate in terms of US$-euro in 1999 and 2000. |
We can use the AMU-wide weights in table 2 to calculate an exchange rate for the AMU-wide in terms of the US$-euro as follows
| The basket weights of the AMU-wide and AMU-wide Deviation Indicators are revised annually. |
| For the time being, only nominal AMU-wide Deviation Indicators are published. |
