ECB's Trichet sees economy resilient in first half

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The euro-zone economy appears to be reasonably resilient in the first half of 2008, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said in newspaper interviews published on Wednesday.

Speaking with four Austrian newspapers, Trichet said the ECB decided on interest rates every month on the basis of the latest data but so far the economy was holding up well, even though the European Commission cut its growth outlook.

"What we are observing in the first quarter of 2008 is that the economy was quite robust and in the first half of the year it will probably be reasonably resilient," he told Die Presse, Der Standard, Der Kurier and Salzburger Nachrichten, according to a transcript released by the ECB.

Extracts from the interview were published late on Tuesday by Der Standard.

The ECB has kept interest rates on hold at 4 percent for 10 months as it waits for a clearer read on the economic impact of financial market turmoil, although the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of England have eased, pushing the euro to record highs against the dollar <EUR=> and sterling.

Trichet repeated concerns about sharp fluctuations in the exchange rates of major currencies, and denied that financial markets were ignoring the message from Group of Seven major economies in Washington earlier this month.

"I think that observers and market participants are certainly listening to what we say, on both sides of the Atlantic," he said in the interview, conducted on Monday.

"I trust it is important that the U.S. president, the U.S. secretary of the treasury and my colleague Ben Bernanke said that a strong dollar is in the interest of the United States."

On Tuesday the dollar rose to its highest level in a nearly a month against the euro, buoyed by expectations that the Fed will cut rates by a quarter percentage point to 2 percent later on Wednesday and indicate that the rate-cutting cycle is done for now.