Predictions of the decline of the dollar as the world’s pre-eminent reserve currency have been two a penny since the onset of the credit crunch in 2007.
They have been given ample headroom by dollar weakness associated with the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programme. The big holders of foreign exchange reserves in Asia and the Middle East have, naturally enough, been desperate to diversify away from the currency market consequences of US monetary easing.
Even after global capital flowed back into the dollar when worries over the eurozone sovereign debt crisis were at their peak last year, there were still plenty of analysts willing to promote the cause of the renminbi as a future replacement for the dollar.