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RBNZ's Bollard wonders whether the WTO could supervise exchange rate behaviour, following the impact of foreign central bank money printing on NZ$

Currencies
RBNZ's Bollard wonders whether the WTO could supervise exchange rate behaviour, following the impact of foreign central bank money printing on NZ$

Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard says there must be ways to incentivise better exchange rate practices and put boundaries on what is accepted behaviour, during a presentation in which he noted the effects of foreign central bank quantitative easing on the New Zealand dollar.

Bollard floated the idea of having the World Trade Organisation act as a potential supervisor of exchange rate practices, BusinessDesk reports at NZHerald:

Central banks that have embarked on quantitative easing have "clearly been having an effect on capital flows and exchange rates in other countries," including New Zealand where the kiwi dollar has stayed persistently high since the 2008 global financial crisis, Bollard told an academic audience in Wellington.

"There must be ways we could incentivise better exchange rate practices in countries and put boundaries on acceptable behaviour," Bollard said.

Though he didn't have any magic solutions, Bollard floated the idea of the WTO as a potential supervisor to "look at the economic conditions and exchange rate behaviour" to improve the global currency framework.

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5 Comments

The government should tell Bollard to stop having these communist ideas about centralised power.

This is what the government should tell the central bank to do. Print a few billion dollars and then use this money to buy the foreign curency earnings from NZ exporters at an exchange rate of $1 NZ for each 50c US then pay off some the governments overseas debt with this currency. That would immediately help our exporters and help the government pay off some debt

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Diddums. Not fair. Marquis of Queensbury. Big Boys are not playing by the rules? Not fair at all. Well Mr Bollard, you've been in the job 10 years. You know how the game is played. How much time have you spent learning how to play dirty. Have you taught your successor how to hit below the belt? It appears Christov's assessment of you was right all along.

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Icon,

Well said. Even if say the WTO was remotely interested in such a role, the big guys would never agree, and nor should they. If they think printing money is right for them, then frankly they should carry on. NZ can easily match that activity if it chooses; or put capital controls in place. We haven't so we are roughly $15 billion per annum worse off. They actually present us with an opportunity. Bollard has just chosen not to take it, and now he's out the door, he's realised his legacy looks a bit sick so he's looking to blame others.

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Bolly gets to the end of his tenure, cops another doughnut to Jackson Hole, and starts crying foul off the back of admitting ,he has no understanding of macro-economics.....

Ooooh please somebody help me , it's not fair....they never told me it would be this hard, they just said I should come out occassionally and dribble on about inflation targeting and how defenceless we are being so small n all, but now I see I'm going to be the butt of Central Bankers jokes for years to come...for sniff being ..sniff ...such a wimpish nob...sniff....and my book...sniff ...went straight  ...sniff..snuffle.........to the ......sniff.....uh...........comedy .....  .........section...aaaaaaghbawhoo...boohoo...sniff..wipe sniff...why couln't they have roomed me with the dude from Malaysia thingybob.....snif sniff...deary me, it's all going pear shaped.......

That is about as long as his memoirs should be.......

 Enjoy your doughnut Bolly, get your watch , pension, unsold boxes of you book and leave us to float on.........

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Central banking thinking. A committee of blokes in a room has perfect knowledge of the world's economy. Old school thinking

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