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The blame game
German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has echoed the sentiments of her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, that for Germany the “euro is too weak” and that it is “because of ECB policy”. The statements may be an attempt to deflect criticism from the US administration about Germany’s trade surplus and perhaps to win favour amongst members of the electorate increasingly frustrated about earning little or no interest on their high savings. But the fact is there are bigger drivers of Germany’s 9% of GDP current account surplus than a weak euro – even our FX strategists’ forecast of further euro appreciation is unlikely to make much of a dent in it.
On the way up
Germany’s surplus has been on a rising trend over the past 15 years. First it was vis-à-vis the rest of the eurozone and, since the financial crisis, Germany’s bilateral surpluses with the US and Asia have grown. Neither periods of euro appreciation or depreciation seemed to have a meaningful impact on the imbalance.
Learning from others
Besides, the past experiences of Japan in the 1980s and China in the 2000s illustrate that currency appreciation is no silver bullet for eliminating a large surplus. A stronger currency was associated with their domestic booms. Asset prices rose and their surpluses temporarily narrowed but domestic imbalances grew which ultimately led to even greater deflationary pressures. Undertaking, or incentivising, greater investment in Germany and across the eurozone in a way that supports productivity and wage growth would be more likely to drive a sustained rebalancing in the monetary union.
Higher wages needed before higher rates
Rather than Germany blaming ECB policy for its huge surplus, arguably the ECB should be blaming Germany – for preventing the ECB from meeting its inflation mandate. Underlying inflation in Germany has, in the past few years, finally been a little above the rest of the monetary union but Eurozone inflation still seems to be capped below 2% by lacklustre German wage growth. No one is suggesting it will be easy, but only action to drive a sustainable expansion of domestic demand and inflation in Germany will meaningfully erode its current account surplus and give the ECB a chance of meeting its price stability mandate over the medium or even long term.
20170606-HSBC-Don't Blame the ECB：A Stronger Euro is Not Panacea for Germa.pdf
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