The G-20 industrialized and developing nations are having “very informal” discussions about a series of matters including the relationship between the Federal Reserve’s benchmark rates and emerging markets’ currencies, European Central Bank governing council member Christian Noyer said Sunday.

“The debate was touched upon...what is the responsibility of U.S. monetary policy and of emerging countries’ exchange-rate regimes in the rise of global inflation,” Noyer said. “It’s an important debate, on which our discussions are very open and informal.”
Noyer, who is also governor of the Bank of France, added that emerging markets want to see a solution to the euro-zone sovereign debt crisis, which has seen Portugal, Greece and Ireland receive assistance from the ‘troika’ of the European Central Bank, the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
-----------Ex-ECB board member expresses confidence in euro
A former member of the European Central Bank’s executive board says in a newspaper interview published Sunday that the euro will long outlive him.
“The euro will outlive me by a long time,” Otmar Issing tells Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The German Issing served on the executive board from 1998 to 2006 and was known then as the bank’s chief economist.
In the interview, Issing warns against the nostalgia that some Germans have for the Deutsche Mark, their former currency. He argues that were the Deutsche Mark in place at the time the financial crisis intensified three years ago the economic consequences for Germany would have been “fatal,” due to the rapid acceleration of the currency that would have taken place.
-------------------U.S. Retail sales probably stagnated as auto demand fell
Sales at U.S. retailers probably stagnated in June, reflecting declining auto demand and rising unemployment, economists said before reports this week.
The projected unchanged reading in purchases would follow a 0.2 percent May decrease, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey ahead of Commerce Department figures July 14. Another report may show the cost of living decreased for the first time in a year as fuel prices retreated.
Supply constraints due to Japan’s earthquake helped push car sales last month to the lowest level since June 2010, while unemployment prompted stores like Target Corp. and Gap Inc. to sweeten discounts to lure customers. A dearth of jobs raises the risk that consumer spending, which makes up 70 percent of the economy, will have difficulty picking up for the rest of 2011.