Joaquin Almunia: Euro Above Equilibrium

Today before the G7 meeting in Tokyo, Japan, Joaquin Almunia, who is currently European Commissioner for Economic & Financial Affairs, told the reports that the European currency is still above its fair value.

Despite the euro has already stopped its fast appreciation against the U.S. dollar, started a possibly strong decline against the Japanese yen and now is growing only against the Great Britain pound, there are still many finance officials in Eurozone that are strongly voting for the weaker euro.

Commenting the current state of the currency markets Almunia said:

The euro has reached a level where we can consider that it is already above its equilibrium level… [But] the euro’s rise has been more than compensated for by the growth of global trade.

This Group of Seven meeting which will be held tomorrow will be the first such event in 2008, but it’s unlikely that it will have much influence on anything in the financial world. Nevertheless the commentaries made by the officials are still useful to understand their vision of the markets.

If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the Euro,
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