SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Jim Rogers, one of the world's best known investors, said on Monday the pound could fall near parity with the dollar in coming years given Britain's increasing debt and lack of economic growth drivers.
Rogers said last week the pound was "finished" and people should avoid investing in Britain, leading to a retort from Prime Minister Gordon Brown that economic policy would not be influenced by speculators.
Sterling weakened against the dollar on Monday to near a 23-year low of $1.3500 reached on Friday.
Asked whether he had a call on where the pound would be by year end Rogers said: "No...I'm a very bad short-term trader.
"I suspect it's going to make new lows -- it may take a decade," he told Reuters. "It's got near parity with the dollar before...why not again?"
Rogers was a co-founder along George Soros of the Quantum Fund, which made more than $1 billion betting against the pound in early 1990s and now is an independent investor based in Singapore.
"There's two big holes developing in the UK's balance of payments -- North Sea oil drying up and the financial industry. I don't see anything replacing those two big holes."
The UK economy shrank at its fastest pace since 1980 in the three months to December. British policymakers seem content to let the pound drop to help exporters and Brown has said the building blocks of recovery are in place.
"I'd like him to explain what they are," Rogers said, adding if this meant bailing out failing banks it would be a disaster, given Japan had tried that in the 1990s and was left struggling to recover with "zombie" banks.
"Take the pain, clean out the assets and start again," Rogers advised. He said joining the euro could make Britain more competitive but he did not have much long-term faith in that currency either. "I expect the euro won't be around in 20 years."
Rogers said he was not short selling the pound and was not picking on the UK. He said the United States and new President Barack Obama were making the same mistakes by bailing out banks.
"Obama has got the wrong plans and the wrong people," said Rogers, reiterating he was only positive on China and commodities.
"I'm not buying stocks anywhere -- the world is in recession and it's not going to get better," he said. "If politicians keep making mistakes it's going to last longer and longer."
(Reporting by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
