"Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed has discussed the possibility with other ASEAN members and by the year-end, it could start, of such a trade," Manoj Devadasan, an official with the Kuala Lumpur Commodity Exchange, said.

Malaysia, in particular, was planning to exchange its crude and refined palmolein for commodities such as rice with countries like Thailand and Indonesia, said Devadasan, who was here in connection with a two-day workshop on commodities futures market said.

Stating that there was immense scope for barter trading in physical stocks, he said it would be crucial in overcoming the crisis created by the plunge inSouth-East Asian currencies against the US dollar.

"The weakening of our local currencies has affected futures trading in commodities barring crude palm oil," he said.

Devadasan said though the Kuala Lumpur commodity exchange had provisions to trade in various commodities, the currency crisis had taken a toll on most of them.

"Futures trading in most of the commodities has been forgotten due to the crisis. We are trying to come to terms with the present situation and strengthen it," he said. Asked about Hegde's view on barter trade to reduce dependence on the dollar, he said it would be one way out for the Asian economies to overcome the current crisis.

India is a dialogue partner in ASEAN and joined Malaysia in blaming speculative tendencies for strengthening dollar against Asian currencies at the group of 15 developing nations (G-15) meeting at Kuala Lumpur last year.