Stanley Fischer
צילום: פלאש 90
Fischer: True implications of financial crisis unknown
Bank of Israel governor hosts panel on global economic crisis along with French finance minister, German Central Bank chancellor. All three agree worst is over, countries must instate policy changes in order to avoid reoccurrence
Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said Thursday that he believes it is too early to accurately assess the repercussions of the global financial crisis.
Fischer was speaking at a Jerusalem conference on the global crisis.
French Finance Minister Anne Marie Idark, who was one of the keynote speakers, said that the financial crisis will not be over until such time when unemployment rates show significant improvement.
Idark added that while she believes that the worst is probably behind world economies, she also believed there is still a great deal of uncertainty.
The crisis, she said, should be used to create a new kind of capitalism and improve international financial dialogue.
Fischer, on his part, said no one could know at this time what the actual, long-term ramifications of the crisis may turn out to be, in terms of the effect on dollar rates and world economies' growth.
He stressed that the West must learn from the crisis so as to ensure a calamity of such magnitude does not reoccur.
Germany's Central Bank President Prof. Axel Weber, who also took part in the panel, predicted, like his colleagues, that the worst was over, but said that the banking sector is likely to continue to suffer losses over the next two years.
The banks must formulate better guidelines and raise better capital; and if the world learns anything for the crisis, he said, it should be that countries must have tighter control over the banking system.
