Excerpt,
Transcript of a Press Briefing by William Murray, Deputy Spokesman , Communications Department, International Monetary Fund
Questioner: Good morning. I have two questions following up on the world economic outlook update. One is, obviously here the IMF is noticing the danger of deflation and most notably in the euro zone and most notably in the countries of the south of the euro zone. To what extent does the IMF think that this deflation danger that is increasing, from what I understand you're saying, is undermining the efforts to bring down the debt of countries such as Greece?
MR. MURRAY: Thanks. A quick reminder, Olivier Blanchard gave a press brief, a press conference call, unfortunately, due to the snowstorm that blanketed Washington earlier in the week, but in his remarks on the world economic outlook, he talked about the deflation in the context of a risk, -- we're not forecasting deflation in Europe in the euro zone. It's a risk. So therefore, it's not present yet.
It's something that monetary policy authorities need to be cognizant of and do whatever they can to avoid. I can't really answer your question because we don't see deflation in the euro zone. What it is, it's a risk of deflation and monetary policymakers need to be aware and ready to react.
