TREASURY'S BAKER SAYS HE STANDS BY PARIS PACT

  Treasury Secretary James Baker said
  he stood by the Paris agreement among leading industrial
  nations to foster exchange rate stability around current
  levels.
      "I would refer you to the Paris agreement which was a
  recognition the currencies were within ranges broadly
  consistent with economic fundamentals," Baker told The Cable
  News Network in an interview.
      "We were quite satisfied with the agreement in Paris
  otherwise we would not have been a party too it," he said.
      Baker also noted the nations agreed in the accord to
  "co-operate to foster greater exchange rate stability around
  those levels."
      He refused to comment directly on the current yen/dollar
  rate but said flatly that foreign exchange markets recently
  tended "to draw unwarranted inferences from what I say."
      Baker was quoted on British Television over the weekend as
  saying he has no target for the U.S. currency, a statement that
  triggered this week's renewed decline of the dollar.
      "I think the Paris agreement represents evidence that
  international economic policy co-ordination is alive and well,"
  Baker said.
      The Treasury Secretary stressed however it was very
  important for the main surplus countries to grow as fast as
  they could consistent with low inflation to resolve trade
  imbalances.
      He added that Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker
  has also "been very outspoken" in suggesting main trading
  partners grow as fast as they can.
  

