The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 35, September 3, 2007, Article 10

ON SACAJAWEA DOLLARS IN ECUADOR

Regarding last week's question on the use of Sacagawea dollars
in Ecuador, Roberto Jovel writes: "I am sure you and your
readers will recall that Ecuador dollarized its economy many
years ago, and that since then U.S. coins and notes have been
used for daily transactions, including the Dollar coin.
Another Latin American country that dollarized its economy
recently is El Salvador, and U.S. coins and notes are used
as well, except for the one-dollar coin denomination."

Eric von Klinger writes: "Coin World has reported several
times on Ecuador's "dollarization" program involving circulation
of Sac dollars. We reported Feb. 11, 2002, that the U.S.
Treasury Dept. had supplied $5 million in Sacs to Ecuador;
the same article reported a large export of the coins to El
Salvador, where a similar program was in place. Other articles
followed in the July 25 and Oct. 21, 2002 issues of CW, and
in the April 19, 2004, issue. The article in October 2002
concerned a problem of widespread use of counterfeits of
the coin in Ecuador."

Eric sent along the text of a May 31, 2004 report on the
success of the program; here's one excerpt:

"U.S. currency officially became legal tender throughout
Ecuador in September 2000. The extraordinary action was an
effort to stabilize the South American nation's shaky economy
and to deal with rampant inflation of the up-till-then monetary
unit, the sucre. By New Year's Day 2003, the U.S. government
had shipped more than 500 million of the dollar coins to
Ecuador for use as circulating currency."

 SACAGAWEA DOLLARS IN ECUADOR
 esylum_v10n34a16.html

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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