ECB's Trichet says global growth, prosperity are 'fantastic'

ECB's Trichet says global growth, prosperity are 'fantastic'

	Published : Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:47 By : Agencies Print this Story

WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - It is a remarkable time for the world economy, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said today.

'I wanted to say, crucially, that global growth and prosperity are fantastic,' he told Thomson Financial News after accepting an award as Policymaker of the Year from International Economy Magazine.

Trichet gave much of the credit for that to the policies of the ECB and those of his central banker colleagues gathered in a small Washington hotel ballroom--including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, his predecessor Alan Greenspan and Bundesbank President Axel Weber.

It is remarkable, Trichet said, that after just eight-and-a-half years, the euro can 'inspire as much confidence as the best national currencies' which preceded it, and is appreciated by the markets as just as credible.

In the early years of the currency, that credibility was inherited, said the Bundesbank's Weber. Much of the inheritance came from the German central bank, but now Weber said, 'the ECB has earned that credibility, it has no longer inherited it it has earned it on its own.'

Weber, Bernanke and Greenspan all heaped praise on their colleague using two terms Greenspan said do not normally go together: charm and central banking.

Each had his own examples of the Trichet charm, Greenspan telling the audience one of the things he missed most about not being Fed chairman any longer was the breakfasts and lunches he used to have with Trichet.

That's not as odd as it sounds at first. The central bankers are in Washington now for the G7-IMF meetings, just as they meet in other parts of the world with some regularity.

'That group of people never changes but we just move from one place to the next,' Greenspan said.

And the fact of those frequent meetings pays off in more than pleasure, Trichet said.

When a crisis hits, like the financial turmoil of this summer or the attacks of 9-11, what's important is the 'right diagnosis, a lucid diagnosis, the multiocular vision' and a rapid decision.

Knowing the other central bankers of the world so well, allows that to happen. And citing the current episode of financial turmoil, Trichet said 'we have to be permanently alert.'

dennis.moore@thomson.com

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