Celeste and cider
Notes by Reka Mazur at  the III Meeting of Monetary Policy Advisors
European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Germany
 

Argentineans call the main colour of their national flag celeste, a special shade of blue and green which they say is the usual colour of the sky in that part of the globe.

When I first heard of this I wondered what our guests were thinking when they first glanced at the grey Frankfurt panorama from the 36th floor on those cloudy days of 1-2 March when the monetary policy workshop with representatives from the Latin American central banks was held at the ECB. It was mournful and grey on the first day, but fortunately closer to a clear blue on the second.

Co-organiser of the workshop was the Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), the association of Latin American and Caribbean central banks, which aims at promoting a better understanding of regional monetary and financial topics. It also provides services as a coordinator of meetings of area specialists from central banks, events which bring together professionals from all over the world to share views, techniques and analyses, and provide a mutual network for consultation.

The workshop was introduced by Frank Moss, Director General International and European Relations and Kenneth Coates, Director of CEMLA. The first speaker, Vincent Reinhart, Director of the Division of Monetary Affairs and Secretary of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee provided an excellent overview of US monetary policy over the last five years. The presentations that followed covered recent economic developments in the international environment (global imbalances, global liquidity and financial market conditions, reserve accumulation – by Christian Thimann, DG-I) and the role of money in the ECB’s monetary policy strategy and implementation (with contributions by Björn Fischer and Diego Rodriguez Palenzuela, DG-E). Two sessions were dedicated to current monetary policy issues in Latin America. Participants discussed monetary policy modelling at the ECB in a separate session (presentation by Roberto Motto, DG-E). Credit for the smooth organisation and running of the workshop is due to Francisco Ramon Ballester, Senior Economist and the specialist in Latin American issues at the ECB.

The event opened new horizons even for those who were not focused on the strictly professional aspects but joined the workshop only occasionally. I had interesting and diverse conversations with representatives from Mexico, Chile, Colombia, the Netherlands Antilles, Brazil, and Spain, just to mention a few. For instance, Chile’s overall trade profile has traditionally been dependent on copper exports and record copper prices during recent years have reinforced this dependency further, generating a huge surplus on the trade balance. Turning to the Netherlands Antilles, these five islands (two leeward and three windward) in the Caribbean Sea form an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands Antilles issues its own currency, the Netherlands Antillean guilder which has a fixed exchange rate to the US dollar. A famous natural feature of the two leeward islands Curaçao and Bonaire is the Divi-Divi-Tree, which is strangely contorted due to the strong north-east trade winds.

As for Mexico, the constitution defines the country as a “pluricultural nation”. There is no official language at the federal level but Spanish is de facto used. I learnt that the law grants all 62 (!) indigenous languages spoken in Mexico (regardless of the number of speakers) the same validity. No wonder that this country has become another of my favourites after finding so many similarities with our European ones.

And, although not very common for business purposes, definitely one of the best decisions was choosing Wagner’s for a dinner with lots of meat, sauerkraut, cider and good atmosphere – our local alternative to celeste... And guess what: they loved it!

More information at:

• III Meeting of Monetary Policy Advisors
  www.cemla.org

Newsletter 15, mayo de 2007