Global economic activity is at a turning point, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said Monday, as indicators from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed some of the world’s leading economies may be on the path to recovery.
Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
«We are, as far as growth is concerned, around the inflection point in the cycle» and the international economic downturn is easing, said Mr. Trichet at a press conference Monday. Mr. Trichet spoke in his capacity as chairman of the bi-monthly meeting of global central bankers at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.
But the ECB chief cautioned against reading too much into recent improvements in some global indicators. «There has been a substantial improvement in the markets since mid-September [2008],» said Mr. Trichet.
«But we have to remain very alert. We are still in uncharted waters.»
Monthly figures from the Paris-based OECD, designed to provide early signals of economic turning points, supported the cautiously optimistic stance. The results point to an ongoing strong slowdown across developed economies as a whole, but suggest a small group of economies may have turned the corner and are now headed for a recovery