Title: Ecuador’s one and only official currency is the US Dollar — People Places and Thoughts
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Content: Ecuador’s one and only official currency is the US Dollar — People Places and Thoughts
People Places and Thoughts
May 24
May 24 Ecuador’s one and only official currency is the US Dollar
Patrick James Kapche
Ecuador began using the US Dollar as its official currency in the year 2000. There is no other official currency in Ecuador, all prices are in US Dollars. Some Ecuadorean coins exist for small amounts less than one dollar. Ecuador and the US have a somewhat complicated relationship, from past disputes over US military use of Ecuadorian airports, to the recently ended harbor of Julian Assange in an Ecuadorian embassy, to disagreements about support for neighboring South American regimes. Yet one curiously cooperative arrangement between the two countries is Ecuador’s adoption of the US Dollar as the country’s one and only official currency. Ecuador’s initiative to dollarize it’s currency in 2000 is an interesting example of a country deciding to adopt another country’s currency as its own. I tried to find out more while visiting this South American country of nearly 17 million people. Ecuador is not the only non-US territory that currently uses the US Dollar (Panama, El Salvador, and Zimbabwe are some other examples), yet each country that has adopted the US Dollar manages the details a bit differently. Some of the distinctive features of Ecuador’s usage of US currency include the following: Ecuador has no other official currency
Ecuador’s use of the US Dollar is a government-sponsored initiative
Ecuador has its own minted coins in amounts lower than one US Dollar (which are used interchangeably with US coins)
Informal US Dollar usage in Ecuador pre-dates the official dollarization initiative in 2000.