Oil payments: Total CEO urges bigger euro role

PARIS: Oil major Total’s chief executive said the euro should have a bigger role in international trade although it was not possible to do without the US dollar.
Christophe de Margerie was responding to questions about calls by French policymakers to find ways at EU level to bolster the use of the euro in international business following a record US fine for BNP.
“Doing without the (US) dollar, that wouldn’t be realistic, but it would be good if the euro was used more,” he said.
“There is no reason to pay for oil in dollars,” he said. He said the fact that oil prices are quoted in dollars per barrel did not mean that payments actually had to be made in that currency.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Thursday that euro zone finance ministers would discuss ways of boosting use of the euro in international trade in their next monthly meeting on Monday.
“It would be a way to protect businesses when, outside of US territory, they carry out transactions that are perfectly legal in the country they belong to,” he said.
In another development, European Central Bank (ECB) policymaker Christian Noyer said it seemed that the risk of deflation had been avoided in euro currency zone, even if inflation remained too low.
The euro zone inflation rate held at a rate of 0.5 percent last month, well below the ECB’s target of close to, but below, 2 percent and within what ECB President Mario Draghi has called the “danger zone.”
Noyer said it was a paradox that inflation remained weak despite very accommodative monetary polices, adding: “Even if the risk of deflation seems to have been avoided, we have ... price increases that are too low.”
Draghi had said on Thursday that a raft of policy measures introduced last month would help lift inflation and support bank lending but the ECB stood ready to create money if required.
Noyer, who was speaking at an economic conference in the southern France city of Aix-en-Provence, also said questions remained on growth in China. US “dynamism” had so far not been as high as expected, while Europe “struggles to take off,” he said.