	stoltenberg sees moves to strengthen paris accord west german finance minister gerhard stoltenberg said today s meetings of major industrial countries would look at ways of strengthening the paris accord on stabilizing foreign exchange rates stoltenberg told journalists he saw no fundamental weakness of the february agreement of the group of five countries and canada to keep exchange rates near the then current levels but he declined to say what measures would be discussed ahead of a communique of the group of seven ministers later today stoltenberg and bundesbank president karl otto poehl said the importance of the paris agreement also known as the louvre accord had been underestimated stoltenberg said there is greater agreement now among major countries than six months ago at the time of the annual meeting of the international monetary fund and world bank marked by sharp discord between the united states and its major trading partners there is no fundamental weakness of the paris accord he said we will be looking at ways of strengthening it but i do not want to discuss that here stoltenberg said the louvre agreement was working despite a slight firming of the yen against the dollar and poehl noted that the dollar mark parity was unchanged since february without the bundesbank having had to sell marks to support the dollar the louvre agreement has been honored by the market he said poehl said west germany had lived up to its side of the bargain in paris by preparing the way for tax cuts to be accelerated as a way of stimulating growth poehl said however that japan had not yet fulfilled its pledges for economic stimulation and we will have to see if the united states is able to do what they promised in paris on reducing the budget deficit and get it through congress he added stoltenberg reiterated west german concern about a further fall in the dollar noting that the mark was up pct against the dollar and nearly pct on a trade weighted basis you cannot expect that to go unnoticed in an economy and it is not just a german problem it is a european problem he said reuter 
