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ECB's Mersch says recovery on wobbly legs [January 14, 2014] FRANKFURT (Reuters) — The euro zone economic recovery is still very tentative and fragile and is Europe's number one challenge for 2014, European Central Bank Executive Board member Yves Mersch said on Monday. |
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"I see the big challenge for this year in the
still very tentative upturn," Mersch said in the text of a
speech to be given at an Ifo Institute event in Munich. "The
economic recovery in Europe still stands on wobbly legs." Mersch also urged those countries which can afford it to invest
in infrastructure. While he did not specifically name Germany, it has faced
criticism from countries in Europe and beyond for spending less
on infrastructure over the past decade. Government spending on this fell to 1.5 percent of gross
domestic product (GDP) from 2 percent in 1999, and is well below
the European Union average of 2.5 percent, according to the DIW
economic institute. Turning to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), Mersch
said that some of them suffer from bottlenecks in financing. He
proposed founding a database which would assess SME credit risk. Mersch repeated his call for increased use of asset-backed
securities (ABS) as an SME financing tool. "Robust European securitisation platforms could be a sensible
addition to bank-based financing," he said. (Reporting by Sakari Suoninen) [© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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