GENEVA: Switzerland's central bank chief on Friday defended the institution's shock decision to scrap efforts to stop the overheated franc rising, insisting the turbulence rocking markets and the Swiss economy should settle.
"You must remember that the currency cap from the beginning was supposed to be an exceptional and temporary measure," Thomas Jordan said in an interview to be published in the Saturday editions of Swiss dailies Le Temps and NZZ.
"It was always meant to be abandoned," he said, stressing that the bank's massive efforts to hold down the currency were no longer warranted.
"If the (economic) objective is no longer justified or sustainable, we should stop the exercise. We reached that point," he said.
The bank, he said, had determined that if it had continued its policy "it risked losing control of its monetary policy in the long term."
Jordan's comments came a day after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) stunned markets with its decision to abandon the minimum rate of 1.20 francs against the euro that it had been defending for more than three years.
The Swiss currency immediately gained nearly 30 percent against the euro, before stabilising at around parity -- which is still 15 percent higher than Wednesday's rate.
The soaring franc caused panic on global markets, bankrupted foreign exchange traders as far away as New Zealand and was seen as a significant threat to Switzerland's export-dependant economy.
The Swiss stock exchange's main SMI index has plunged more than 14 percent since Thursday morning.
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