European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said the euro-zone economy is showing signs of self-sustaining growth but the ECB still needs additional data to confirm it. Speaking last night to the ICFW group of Frankfurt business journalists, Bini Smaghi said: "There are some elements of strength in the economy. It's fair to say that we need a confirmation of today's data." He said there are also "certain elements of weakness", such as in domestic consumption levels, which need to be monitored. He said it is difficult to forecast what growth in the second, third and fourth-quarters of this year would look like and how various wage bargaining talks in euro-zone would be settled. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said last Thursday, shortly after the bank hiked the minimum bid interest rate to 3.75 pct from 3.50 pct, that the bank would monitor the upcoming wage negotiations very carefully, arguing that stronger-than-expected wage hikes would pose "significant upward risks to price stability". Bini Smaghi told the ICFW that the ECB has to wait "month-by-month" to see if its growth scenario for the euro-zone materialises. He said the ECB's monetary policy strategy is to "look at growth and inflationary pressures going forward", which means "looking 1-1/2 years or 2 years ahead whether interest rates need to be adjusted" at the present time. Commenting on Asia's economy, Bini Smaghi said the region not only makes a strong contribution to world economic growth but also plays a "shock-absorbing" role in the context of existing global imbalance. "One could certainly entertain the hypothesis that, for the continued sustained growth of the world economy, a slowdown of Asian economies would be as worrisome, if not more, than that of the US," he added. He said the best chance of convincing China and other emerging economies to adopt appropriate policies is to engage them within a multilateral dialogue. "Bilateral dialogue, aimed at putting pressure on countries is less likely to be successful, especially in the case of China," he said. He said "traditional hegemonic ways" of approaching international economic issues, whereby the larger economies put pressure on others to modify their policies, is unlikely to be effective in an increasingly global economy. He said in order for China to incorporate the concerns of the world economy in their domestic policy-making, it needs to be given an "appropriate role" in the multilateral dialogue, where they can assume responsibility for global developments.