The launch of euro banknotes and cash in all 12 countries that have adopted the single currency can already be called a 'tremendous success' after only three days, European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg said today.
He also said the recent rise in the value of the euro against the dollar was 'gratifying'.
'We can already pronounce the euro cash changeover a tremendous success,' Duisenberg told a news conference held jointly with the EU commissioner for economics and monetary affairs Pedro Solbes and the new head of the ECOFIN council of finance ministers Rodrigo Rato.
'Overall, no major problems were reported,' Gerassimos Thomas, the spokesman for Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pedro Solbes, said earlier today.
An average of 20% of retail business transactions yesterday were conducted in euros, ranging from a low of 3% in Italy to a high of nearly 50% in France and the Netherlands, Thomas said.
The low use in Italy, he said, was due to the low rate of pre-loading of automatic teller machines (ATMs), and the fact that Italians had purchased relatively few of the 'starter kits' of euro coins available in late December. That ATM situation was being quickly corrected, he said, with the percentage of Italian ATMs dispensing euros climbing from 45% yesterday morning to 70% last night.
'This is not a race between countries,' said Jonathan Faull, spokesman for Commission President Romano Prodi. 'The president has no doubt whatever about the euthusiasm of the Italians for the new money.
'In national reports we are receiving it appears there has not been an impact on prices with the switch to the euro,' he said. He also said some nominal price reductions had been noted in some German and Greek supermarkets which were rounding out national currency conversions downward.
The rate of euro use appeared to be lowest in supermarkets, said Thomas, where 'people seemed to be trying to get rid of their national currencies.' He said the commission expected transactions in euros to rise appreciably during the week and to be in the majority by the weekend.
