COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - October 16, 2009 - The leftist Latin American ALBA trade bloc is scheduled on Friday to approve measures that would replace U.S. dollars with a new virtual currency for regional commerce, an official here said.

Bolivian Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade Pablo Guzman told reporters that members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) "will replace the dollar in commercial exchanges" between members with the Unified Regional Compensation System, or sucre.

The new monetary system was adopted in principle at an ALBA summit in April by organization members, which include Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, Saint Vincent, Antigua, and Barbuda.

Initially the sucre system - the acronym comes from the Spanish name Sistema Unificado de Compensacion de Pagos Reciprocos - will be a virtual currency used in commercial exchanges between ALBA countries.

An agreement on the value of the sucre relative to regional currencies is 90% complete, according to La Paz.