Something I learnt about the other day was the Special Drawing Rights, or SDR. It’s an international reserve asset that countries can exchange for currency and its value is a combination of five other currencies:
- the US dollar (USD)
- the euro (EUR)
- the Chinese yuan or renminbi (CN¥)
- the Japanese yen (JP¥)
- the British pound sterling (GBP)
The IMF created the SDR in 1969 and set its value as the fractional amount of gold equivalent to one US dollar. In 1973, this changed to the equivalent of the pooled world currencies (as above).
For more info on the SDR and its exact value, check out the IMF’s factsheet.