Malaysia's prime minister said China and his country are considering conducting their trade in Chinese yuan and Malaysian ringgit, joining a rising number of nations thinking of phasing out the dollar.

　　'We can consider whether we can use local currencies to facilitate trade financing between our two countries,' Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak told reporters at a briefing Wednesday after meeting with China's premier, Wen Jiabao.

　　'What worries us is that the [U.S.] deficit is being financed by printing more money,' Mr. Najib said. 'That is what is happening. The Treasury in the United States is printing more notes.'

　　China has been promoting the idea of replacing the dollar as the global currency, suggesting that a basket of currencies less linked to the fate of one economy would make more sense. It also has been talking about using the yuan for trade settlements, starting gradually in the region and then expanding farther abroad.

　　On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged China to move toward a more-flexible exchange rate for the yuan. If the yuan were to strengthen, that would increase China's domestic buying power and reduce the country's dependence on exports.

　　Chinese trading partner Brazil is also looking at reducing its exposure to the dollar by conducting its trade with China in yuan.

　　Despite countries' growing interest in adopting the yuan -- fostered by China's growing economic clout and worries about the U.S. government's deficit spending -- many experts agree it would take a long time to liberalize China's currency enough to be used as a global benchmark. Right now it's difficult to buy and sell yuan outside China.

　　Malaysia's Mr. Najib, speaking on the second day of a four-day visit to Beijing, timed to coincide with the 35th anniversary of diplomatic ties established by Mr. Najib's father, said the two countries signed a series of framework agreements meant to facilitate trade and investment.

　　Mr. Najib, who is also finance minister, has been struggling to revive Malaysia's export-dependent economy. In April, he unveiled measures to liberalize the country's finance sector, allowing greater foreign investment and rolling back some of the decades-old preferential policies granted to elevate the country's majority Muslim Malay population, which helped them compete with the ethnic Chinese.

　　Last week, the government sharply revised down its annual gross-domestic-product forecast to a contraction of between 4% and 5%, versus an earlier estimate of a 1% decline. Analysts now predict the nation's fiscal deficit could rise to 8% of GDP, the highest level in a decade.

　　But Mr. Najib ruled out more stimulus spending. 'We've introduced one of the biggest in the world -- as a percentage of GDP it's 9%. But there's a limit to which we can introduce fiscal stimulus,' he said.

　　对于很多想知道自己的股票还值多少钱的通用汽车（General Motors Corp.）个人股东来说，答案看起来非常凄惨。

　　华盛顿Baker Hostetler LLP合伙人、重组业务负责人沃克曼（Donald Workman）说，在破产分配中，普通股股东通常会被排除在外。他们是优先级最低的，排在债券持有者和优先股股东之后。

　　沃克曼说，大部分情况下，股东们什么也拿不到。通用汽车的破产申请中说，公司有1,720亿美元的负债和820亿美元的资产。他说，对股东来说没什么价值。

　　通用汽车周一历史性的破产申请使之成为涉及资产规模第二大的工业破产案，仅次于2002年WorldCom的破产，为这家具有象征意义的美国汽车生产商的鸿篇巨制划上了句号。

　　根据政府的计划，新通用10%的股权将由现有债券持有者所有，17.5% 由全美汽车工人联合会（UAW）的一只医疗基金所有，12.5%由加拿大政府所有，60%由美国政府所有。奥巴马总统称美国政府是通用汽车一个"不情愿的"股东。

　　美国财政部也在向债券所有者提供担保，允许他们在债券换股票得到10%的股权的基础上，再买进至多15%的新通用股权。

　　财政部发言人证实说，根据这样的分配，旧通用的股东不会获得新通用的股份。

　　通用汽车发言人在电子邮件中拒绝置评，只是说普通股通常会在公司破产程序中损失剩余的价值。

　　波士顿金融咨询公司Mayflower Advisors执行合伙人格莱泽（Lawrence Glazer）说，通用汽车现有股票不太可能在破产期间保留任何价值。他说，对很多投资者来说，这些股票作为税损的价值将高于作为股票投资的价值。以致于如果以后股市上涨，投资者可以用在通用汽车的投资"对冲"未来的上涨。

　　在周二开盘前，纽约证券交易所暂停通用汽车现有股票和其他10只相关股票的交易。从市场开盘时起，通用汽车股票以新的股票代码GMGMQ开始在场外交易。代码中的"Q"表示公司牵涉进破产程序。

　　场外交易粉单市场（Pink OTC Markets Inc.）首席执行长库尔森（Cromwell Coulson）说，在破产计划被法官确认之前，该股将继续在场外交易。该股于周二下午4点报于每股0.61美元。

　　他说，在破产法官确认计划之后，该股将被取消，股票代码将作废。他说，在计划确认之前，破产公司的股价通常会波动。库尔森说，通用汽车股东周二抛售股票，而买家可能包括预测计划确认前股价会上升的投机者，或补空仓的卖空者。

　　从6月8日起，通用汽车将被从道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数成份股中剔除，此前该公司作为成份股已有80多年的历史。技术公司思科系统（Cisco Systems Inc.）将取代通用汽车成为新的成份股。