Economic situtation in eurozone looking up: EFSF chief Klaus Regling

Contrary to the mainstream media perception and market beliefs, the economic situation in the troubled eurozone was improving as member nations took concerted action to improve their finances,  says European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) chief executive Klaus Regling.

Stating that at the macro level there had been much improvement since the sovereign debt crisis hit five years ago in the wake of the fall a number of top American banks, he defended the concept of the euro and said both fiscal and current account deficits had improved and were already better than many other developed countries.

"Despite the lack of confidence of market participants and scepticism, the member-states of the Euro area, hence the European Union, have made significant progress on national level in reducing macroeconomic imbalances," Regling said last evening in Mumbai, delivering the first International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS)-Oberoi lecture on 'The Euro and the future of Europe.'

IISS, a leading London-based institute deals with geo-political and economic issues.

Explaining some of the measures that  the eurozone nations had taken as also their impact on key economic indicators including improvement in fiscal and current account deficits, moderate inflation, etc, Regling said the indicators pointed to sound improvement from the debt crisis.

The EFSF chief said, fiscal deficit in the eurozone was only 4 per cent in 2011, which was down from around 6 per cent from the previous year.