NBP president tells government that strength of zloty is a secondary issue

National Bank of Poland (NBP) president Leszek Balcerowicz yesterday said that he believed that the exchange rate of the zloty was a secondary issue. In his opinion, structural reforms, which would increase the competitiveness of the Polish economy, are much more important. "The zloty is weaker than the average for the whole of last year," he said. He mentioned that his possible meeting with the Minister of Finance should be regarded as a routine event and not an extraordinary one. The NBP president refused to comment on yesterday's statement by Finance Minister Marek Belka, that the Monetary Policy Council (RPP) had lost its credibility through an excessively restrictive monetary policy. The RPP issued a statement saying that the only idea for weakening the zloty is a proposal for the government to buy foreign currencies to service its foreign debt. The Council also stated that a rapid introduction of the Euro to Poland is planned following its Euro pean Union (EU) accession (Prawo i Gospodarka, p.1; Rzeczpospolita, p. B1; Reuters) P.W