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VALLENDAR, Germany (MNI) – German growth will moderate going
forward, but it will still reach its pre-crisis level this year,
European Central Bank Governing Council member Axel Weber said Friday in
this small village along the Rhine.
The Federal Statistical Office’s initial estimate for 2010 GDP
growth of 3.6% was in line with what the Bundesbank, which Weber heads,
had predicted for last year, he noted in a lecture at a business school
here.
Going forward, “we expect a moderation — something similar to the
third quarter, of 0.7 [percent]…This is not bad for the German
economy,” he said.
Weber ducked a question from a student who wanted his opinion of
the U.S. Federal Reserve’s dual mandate. “I do monetary policy for the
euro area,” he said. He repeated ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet’s
standard comment that the community of central bankers is a “mutual
admiration society.”
There “cannot” be another financial crisis in which taxpayers have
to pay for the damage, the Bundesbank president cautioned.
Drawing a metaphor from flooding on this storied river, where
recent water damage has revealed the need for multiple lines of defense,
Weber spoke of the need for multi-layered regulation in the financial
sector.
–Frankfurt bureau, +49-69-720142, tbuell@marketnews.com
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