The definition of developed and developing countries is based on economic level and comprehensive strength. According to this evaluation standard, the developed countries in the world now include the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.
If you look at the amount of money in these countries, you will find that the money in most countries is really valuable. Among these countries, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Malta, Cyprus and Slovakia have now unified the use of the euro as the main currency. The euro has always been valuable. Although it has depreciated against RMB, it can still be exchanged with 1 Euro for more than 7 7 yuan RMB.
Among the remaining developed countries, the pound is the most valuable. 1 pound can be exchanged for more RMB with 9 yuan RMB. In addition, the money of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Singapore is also very valuable, all of which are above 1 to 4. Israel is about less than 1 2. Japan and Korea, which we are familiar with, have worthless currencies. 1 yen can only be exchanged for about 0.06 yuan, and 1 won is only more than 0.005 yuan, which is ten times cheaper than the yen.
Surprisingly, in Northern Europe, which has always been regarded as the most developed region in the world, their national currencies are generally worthless. Except Finland, which uses the euro, several other countries have their own currencies. 1 Swedish kronor can be exchanged for about 0.76 yuan, 1 Norwegian kronor can be exchanged for about 0.76 yuan, which is almost the same, while 1 Danish kronor can be exchanged for 1.04 yuan, and 1 Icelandic kronor can only be exchanged for 0.05 yuan.
It can be seen that the exchange rates of most developed countries are higher than ours, but there are also five or six countries whose exchange rates are lower than ours, so whether the currency is valuable has nothing to do with whether the country is a developed country or not. At present, the most valuable country in the world is Kuwait, and 1 Kuwaiti dinar can be exchanged for 2 1.5 yuan RMB, which is quite valuable, but Kuwait is not a developed country.
In fact, all the currencies in circulation in the world are paper money, and their own value can be ignored. Whether a country's currency has value has something to do with the issuing habits of the country's currency and has little to do with whether the country is developed or not.
Take Japan as an example. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan began to move from a feudal country to a capitalist road, and its economy developed rapidly in all aspects. Japan has also begun to look to the west. At that time, Japan was ambitious and the yen was relatively strong. During the Second World War, all the major countries in the world were at war, but the United States was immune. The United States has become the most powerful country in the world, and the dollar has become a global hard currency. Until the end of World War II, the exchange rate of the Japanese yen against the US dollar was quite high, basically within the range of 1 US dollar against 5 yen.
However, with the defeat of Japan, Japan's domestic economy is extremely shrinking and it is extremely short of money. What the government often does is to print money. The yen began to depreciate rapidly, and soon broke through 10, and then broke through 100. At the time of 1949, 1 USD can be exchanged for 360 yen.
In fact, whether money has value is not very important. The key is stability. If it can be maintained for a long time, even if the currency is worthless, it will not affect the economic development and even bring some benefits. For example, South Korea is the least valuable country among developed countries, far lower than all other developed countries, but it will not affect the development of South Korea.
Japan has experienced a period of rapid depreciation of the yen, which can be said to be quite sad and the whole country is in chaos. But soon the United States provided assistance. Originally, the United States and Japan were hostile countries during World War II, but after the war, the United States took over Japan and regarded Japan as its younger brother in the Far East, so it provided Japan with a lot of development support. With the strong support of the United States and the fact that the Japanese were really hardworking at that time, Japan developed rapidly and achieved economic take-off.
Japan is a small country with limited domestic demand. In order to develop its economy, we must vigorously promote the development of exports. The lower the currency exchange rate, the more favorable it is for exports. For example, the United States buys things from Japan, because one dollar can be exchanged for hundreds of yen, and its purchasing power in Japan is quite strong, so it is naturally willing to export from Japan. Japan is not stupid. Seeing this situation, there is absolutely no need to restore the exchange rate before the yen, just maintain it. What if the yen is worthless? This is actually very easy to handle. Just raise the face value. Like Japan, there are large denomination currencies such as 10000 and 5000.
In the sixties and seventies of last century, Japan's economy could indeed be described as high-speed development. By the 1980s, Japan had become the second largest economic power after the United States, and the gap with the United States was getting smaller and smaller. In addition, Japan has a huge trade surplus with the United States and earned a lot of money from the United States, which makes the United States very dissatisfied. I want to raise a younger brother, but if I catch up with myself, it is absolutely not allowed.
As a result, the United States led Japan to sign the Hiroshima Agreement, the main content of which was about the exchange rate. Increasing the flexibility of Japan's exchange rate policy is actually inducing the appreciation of the yen. In less than two years, the yen has doubled against the dollar. Everyone is used to using dollars to calculate the gross national product of countries. Because of the impact of the appreciation of the yen, Japan's domestic total assets have also increased sharply, and Japan is in the stage of extremely inflated assets. With the appreciation of the yen, the money in the hands of the Japanese is more valuable, thus opening the way to buy in buy buy all over the world. Countless Japanese people began to buy luxury goods, real estate and so on. This has influenced Japan to this day. Now Japan has the largest second-hand luxury goods and jewelry market in the world.
On the surface, the appreciation of the yen has made the Japanese richer, but it has dealt a heavy blow to Japan's export industry and quickly promoted the recovery of the stock market and housing market at home. At that time, the Japanese stock market rushed directly to 40 thousand points. Think about it, our economy is three times that of Japan now. When is the stock market expected to exceed 40,000 points? In addition, Japan's housing market is also very high, claiming that a Tokyo can buy the whole United States. Such rapid asset warming eventually produced a large number of bubbles, and when the bubble burst, Japan's stock market and housing market plummeted by half, and Japan also ended the stage of rapid development, thus entering a recession.
Of course, there are many reasons for Japan's economic recession in the 1990s, but the rapid appreciation of the exchange rate is indeed an important trigger. In this respect, the Japanese have suffered greatly.
Because of this, the yen is worthless now, and the Japanese don't care at all. Even sometimes, the Japanese government often deliberately devalues the yen, which is beneficial to Japanese exports and Japan's overall economic development.