By Brian Love
PARIS, April 7 (Reuters) - Germany should further liberalise its services sector to boost investment and reduce imbalances in the euro zone economy, the OECD's chief economist told Reuters in an interview.
Pier Carlo Padoan said Europe's most immediate challenge was to reduce post-recession government debt and that Greece should be able to do this without further help from the rest of Europe.
Padoan also said a weaker euro exchange rate could give Europe's exporters some oxygen. On Wednesday he presented short-term forecasts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that predict faster recovery in the United States and Japan than in Europe's big economies.
Europe, which can no longer rely on consumption fuelled by ultra-cheap credit, needed to find ways to boost growth potential and reduce imbalances within the euro zone, he said, especially weak domestic demand in Germany.
People tended to believe this boiled down to telling Germany its people should spend more and save less. But there was an option -- higher investment -- that could be pursued without obliging people to deplete pension savings.
"Germany could boost its investment rate by expanding liberalisation to services, therefore raising growth potential," Padoan said. "It would add to Germany's competitiveness and at the same time deal with European growth and imbalances in the euro area."
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde irked export-champion Germany last month by urging it to do more for the 16-country euro zone by promoting domestic demand, saying "it takes two to tango".
That has been generally taken to mean that Berlin, which has boosted competitiveness in part through wage restraint since the early years of the decade, could do more to promote consumer spending, which is generally weaker in Germany than France.
Governments in Europe and much of the developed world have to contend not just with debts bloated by recession but also the increasing strain that the retirement of the post-war baby-boom generation will exert on public finances for years to come.
Padoan said this justified looking for ways to tackle the domestic demand weakness in Germany without overly compromising people's efforts to set resources aside for retirement.
"It can be dealt with by raising investment without necessarily lowering the savings rate," he said.
EURO, GREEK DEBT
Padoan also saw benefits for the euro zone economy in the euro's recent decline.
"Certainly we see in the longer term benefits from a weaker euro than the one that was prevailing, say, a few months back," he said.
"And that also would go in the direction of readjusting the constellation of exchange rates globally speaking."
The euro has fallen more than 10 percent in the past four months versus the dollar, in part because of investor fears about the public finances of euro zone member Greece.
"In debt crises, the first responsibility lies with the governments," Padoan said.
"Of course it's important to have a (euro zone government) safety net there but I am confident that the Greek authorities will deal with it ... Europe has already helped," said Padoan, describing Greece's deficit reduction plans as "very strong".
Padoan said 2011 should be the start date for most governments for removing fiscal stimulus put in place to combat the recession of 2008-09 but that low inflationary pressures left a margin of manoeuvre for the European Central Bank.
"So far we do not see any inflationary pressure coming up very quickly. Output gaps are relatively large and inflationary expectations are well-grounded," said Padoan when asked if the ECB might see the need to raise rates before year-end.
"While of course there is the need to engineer the timing of exit from monetary support, we think the timing may be postponed a little bit as long as inflationary perspectives are the way they look today," he said.
(Editing by Ruth Pitchford)