Agence France Presse

Frankfurt, March 17:

OPEC’s acting secretary general Adnan Shihab-Eldin played down the strong rise in oil prices in a newspaper interview today, saying the global economy was in a better position to cope with price swings. “I think the world economy is robust enough to be able to better cope with such price swings than 20 years ago,” the Kuwaiti told the daily Die Welt in an interview.

“The consequences of a 30 per cent rise in prices are a lot smaller, particularly for industrialised nations whose economies are less dependent on energy,” Shihab-Eldin told the newspaper in comments reproduced in German. “On the other hand, developing countries are much more sensitive to oil price fluctuations,” he added. Oil prices have risen by more than 60 per cent since the beginning of 2004 and breached level of $55 per barrel yesterday.