No Plan To Halt Interest Rates

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32010, 10 June 1969, Page 17

No Plan To Halt Interest Rates

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BASLE, June 9. There were no special measures that could be taken at present to halt the sharp upward trend of world interest rates, central bankers concluded in Basle yesterday.

‘There isn’t much we can do,” Dr Karl Blessing, president of the West German Federal Bank, said when asked how rates could be brought down. “On the contrary, there are indications that interest levels in the United States may continue to rise,” he said. However, some central bankers are worried about current trends in international interest rates, according to European central banking sources. Interest levels in the international Eurodollar money market rose to a record 11 per cent last week amid speculation of possible rises in British and American bank rates.

Discussion of interest rates took place within the gen-

eral context of international monetary problems, the sources emphasised. But the question of the creation of “paper gold” to form a new international reserve asset was not considered. This was a question for the group of 10 major Western industrialised nations, the sources said. Delegates from the group of 10 met in Paris last week to discuss the creation of special drawing rights. South African central bankers in Basle for today’s annual meeting of the Bank for International Settlements, venue for the central bankers’ discussions, would not comment on whether the gold question was being informally discussed over the weekend.