Top central bankers see the world economy improving but are reluctant to predict when interest rates may have to rise to quell inflation, Bank of England Governor Sir Edward George has said.
Briefing reporters at the Bank for International Settlements after chairing a meeting which included officials from the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, Sir George said: "We're seeing a recovery in the global economy. We don't know how strong it is going to be."
"It is quite obvious that spring has come a little bit early this year," George added. "Behind it there was an uncertainty of whether spring would be followed by an agreeable summer."
He stopped short of saying if he or his colleagues thought the recent round of interest rate cuts among major central banks had come to an end, or when rates actually may have to rise to quell inflation as the recovery gets underway.
"It's ridiculous to say if this is the end of the cycle (of falling interest rates). I would mislead you if I pretended to know," he said.
George said there were increasingly positive signs on the US economy, the world's largest, where recovery was clearly under way now. In the eurozone, he said central bankers thought the trough was reached last year and a slow recovery had begun, expecting growth by the end of the year to be back to trend.