GENEVA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The Swiss National Bank says current policy conditions will have to be corrected soon to avoid medium-term inflationary pressures as the economy improves, Chairman Jean-Pierre Roth said on Tuesday.
Central bankers have boosted liquidity, cut interest rates and governments have passed economic stimulus packages to fight the crisis, but economic conditions are now starting to change for the better.
"For some months now we have been noticing signs of an economic turnaround," Roth said in a speech at the Geneva-based the Centre for Monetary and Banking Studies.
"And the general impression is that the framework conditions generated in the crisis will have to be corrected soon to preserve medium-term price stability."
"The difficulty is to assess the right moment to approach this change of direction," added Roth, who leaves his post at the end of the year.
The SNB has fought the financial and economic crisis by cutting interest rates to historically low levels. It also extended the length of repo transactions to a year and bought bonds denominated in Swiss francs.
"We find ourselves now in the classic situation you find at the end of a recession or economic slowdown," Roth said, adding monetary authorities would have to be careful on their timing.
"If they move too quickly, the restarting of the economy may not take place. If they wait for too long for a decision, they could face an inflation problem in 18 to 24 months," the Swiss central banker said.
Roth said the current situation remained exceptional given the massive liquidity injected by central banks as the crisis deepened towards the end of 2008.
Roth said the SNB's independence and coordination with financial supervisors had enabled it to fight the financial crisis, but he ruled out merging the two functions.
"An institutional merger would lead to a greater political influence on central banks' decisions, something that is no guarantee of long-term monetary stability." (Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz and Pascal Schmuck; Writing by Lisa Jucca) ((elisabetta.jucca@thomsonreuters.com; +41 58 306 7354; Reuters Messaging: elisabetta.jucca.reuters.com@reuters.com))