Nations should adopt new gold standard, says World Bank

Robert Zoellick, the president of World Bank, said that top economies should consider readopting a modified global gold standard to guide currency movements.

Talking to the Financial Times Zoellick said a "Bretton Woods II" system of floating currencies is needed to replace the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rate regime that broke down in the early 1970s.

Zoellick called for a system that "is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and (yuan) that moves toward internationalization and then an open capital account."

He added: "The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values."