As the Governor of the independent Banque de France, which became fully independent on 1 January 1994, I had, together with my colleagues on the Conseil de la Politique Monétaire, conducted a monetary policy which resulted in inflation in France averaging 1.4% per year in the five years prior to 1 January 1999.
While these various phases have overlapped at times, we are now very much in this third phase, in which higher production is generating increased exports, but commodity prices are much lower than they were a few years ago and resources sector investment is returning to more normal levels. During the first two stages there was a significant reallocation of resources within the Australian economy.