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Duisenberg sees upward potential for euro

AMSTERDAM: European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg said on Sunday he saw an upward potential to the euro currency in 2000 as growth in the euro zone outpaced that in the United States.

"We expect during the course of this year the euro will go in the opposite direction (to that in 1999)... the euro has strong upward potential," Duisenberg said in an interview on Dutch current affairs programme Buitenhof, broadcast on Sunday.

"We now expect growth in Europe during the course of this year to be faster than growth in America and that will also remain in 2001. That is the basic background why we say the euro has now an upward potential," he said.

However Duisenberg pointed out the Euro area as a whole was less affected by currency movements than in the past.

"Europe needs to learn a little bit, I think, that the effect of a change in the level of the currency on the national economy...is much less for the whole single Europe that it was earlier on an individual member state," he said.

Duisenberg could not say whether he would stay at the helm of the ECB for the full eight-year term.

"I'll be 65 this year. Certainly I'll still do a number of years, but whether I'll stay the full eight years, I haven't taken that decision yet. That will come later," he said.-Reuters