German Finance Minister Warns Crisis to Last Until End 2009

Germany's Finance Minister has grimly predicted the global financial crisis will last at least until late 2009 and said it will take years for Germany to assess the costs of its 480-billion-euro bank rescue package.

In an interview with German weekly Bild am Sonntag, to be published Sunday, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck offered a bleak assessment of Germany's financial health amid growing concerns of a global recession and mounting pressure on a summit of Asian and European nations in Beijing to tackle the crisis.

"The risk of collapse is far from over. It would be wrong to lift the alarm," Steinbrueck said. "We're still dealing with a dangerous situation."

The German government's 480-billion-euro ($610 billion) rescue package for troubled banks, approved last week, is to last through 2009.

" We will certainly need it for that duration," Steinbrueck predicted.

He also said it would take years for Germany to gauge whether the rescue package had racked up real costs.

"We won't know whether the rescue plan will entail real costs until between 2010 and 2013 or whether the state can sell the stakes it receives in banks in return for the rescue package and make up the losses," he added.

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http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3739151,00.html

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