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Basel: Food price inflation may be one of the most serious problems facing the world, but it is one that monetary policy has little power to tackle, central bankers said on Monday.
With the price of food rising by more than 40 per cent a year, the issue is high on the agenda at meetings at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel.
"Food pressure is a global problem, we have to observe, monitor, but we cannot use monetary policy tools to manage this problem," said Polish National Bank president Slawomir Skrzypek. "Food pressures could be one of the most serious problems that we have to face now."
"It's certainly going to be one of the big issues here," Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said on his way into the talks.
Top central bankers including US Federal Reserve vice-chairman Donald Kohn and new Bank of Japan governor Masaaki Shirakawa are joining other G7 colleagues and policymakers from developing nations at the meetings.
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