April 19th, 2010  - by Najam

MADRID: Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado, whose country currently holds the European Union chair, called on Sunday for closer alignment with Asia on monetary matters.”We have to … coordinate better our monetary policies,” Salgado told reporters after talks between EU and Asia-Pacific finance ministers in Spain.”Equally we have avoid forms of economic protectionism,” she underlined in a bid to “stabilise” imbalances within global economic recovery from the world’s worst recession in a century.
She highlighted the need to smooth out wild fluctuations in exchange rates “that we have seen in recent months,” with Europe particularly irritated by China’s policy of keeping the yuan currency closely aligned to the dollar, which has made serious advances against the euro since the Greek debt crisis first blew up.
Salgado said no “concrete discussion” took place on the yuan issue, underlining that China was among a host of major Asian economies unable to make it to the Madrid forum because of mammoth travel chaos triggered by the Icelandic volcano eruption.Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda, for his part, underlined the need for countries in his region to better coordinate exchange rates there in an effort to “re-balance” growth potential, boosting domestic demand and reducing a reliance on exports to Europe and elsewhere.

Source: News Agencies