LONDON (Commodity Online): Global commodities investing legend Jim Rogers who feels that the US dollar is in a terrible shape these days has predicted that the Chinese Renminbi has the potential to replace the US dollar as global currency. 

Rogers, who is chairman of Rogers Holdings and founder of the Rogers International Commodity Index, said that even though the US dollar may rally for a week, or a month or a year from now, he does not plan to own the American currency five-ten years from now. 

In an interview to India’s business television channel ET Now, Rogers—who is the author of such renowned books like Hot Commodities and A Bull in China said: “The only currency on the horizon that I see that will replace the US dollar is the Renminbi.” 

Rogers, whose investment fascination for China is well-known, said that it is an absurd statement that the Renminbi is a black currency right now. “But that is the only currency that I see where I know I will make money.” 

“I own other currencies like Singapore dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, but I am sceptical of the US dollar. I do not own the pound sterling. I see no future for the pound sterling and the only thing I see can replace a dollar is the renminbi down the road, but may be governments continue to debase paper money, we may all have real assets,” he said. 

Rogers said he owns the Chinese Renminbi. 

On the question of whether Chinese authorities will actually let its currency go against other currencies, he said: “They have been opening at more and more. In fact, just this weekend they opened it up a little bit more. They are constantly making it more and more convertible. I think the Chinese are making a mistake.” 

“If I were the Chinese, I would make it totally convertible this afternoon, I would not wait any longer. But I am not Chinese. So they do not have to do what I say, but they are opening it up and as it opens more and more, it will be a very attractive investment and it might some day be an international currency,” Rogers pointed out. 

On the fate of the US dollar, Jim Rogers had the following to say: 

“I own the US dollar at the moment because there have been many-many sceptics on the US dollar. I expect it to rally for a while. I do not know whether I would own it for a week or a month or a year. I just do not know. I do know that as long as there are many-many skeptics, there is a good chance that it will rally, there are some things going on in the US which may cause the rally to go even further. I am not selling my dollars if it goes down, I might even buy more US dollars, but longer term the US dollars may be in terrible-terrible shape. It is a very flowed currency; I do not plan to own the US dollar 5-10 years from now at all and may be sooner.” 

On the investment prospects in emerging markets, Rogers said: 

“Well, I do not own shares in many places any more, including emerging markets. Most emerging markets got terribly over exploited. My way to participate what is going on is to own commodities because if the world economy gets better, commodities will do very well because of the shortages. If the world economy does not get better, I still want to own commodities because the government is going to print more money. It is a wrong thing to do printing money, but that is all they know. So whenever they print money, it is good for real assets. So either way, I would rather own commodities than shares because I do not know what is going to happen to the world economy and I do know many emerging markets have been very-very over exploited.”