Title: Ecuador’s one and only official currency is the US Dollar — People Places and Thoughts
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Content: 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. Prior to Ecuador’s official adoption of the US Dollar, inflation and instability of the Ecuadorian Sucre were already causing Ecuadorians to lean on the US Dollar as a secondary currency. With the instability of the Sucre beginning to threaten Ecuador’s economy, Ecuadorian president Jamil Mahuad, a Harvard graduate, implemented an initiative to officially switch Ecuador to the US Dollar. With a hard-peg conversion rate of 25,000 sucres to one dollar, Ecuador began it’s transition, which has overall been considered successful in stabilizing the country’s inflation problem. The US played a cooperative yet minor supporting role in the transition, but the switch was largely executed by Ecuador on its own. Ecuador’s previous central bank, now a museum
Americans in Ecuador will likely notice some interesting monetary differences between Ecuador and other South American countries, as well as some differences from how the US uses its dollars.