These gains are a prerequisite for the success of anti-inflationist policies. Our monetary and financial markets will have to comply. It is therefore essential for international interest rates to be reasonable in order to allow this investment to take place, and for our exchange rates to be stabilized by cooperation between the chief currencies, so that an orderly international monetary system can be rebuilt. This matter will certainly occupy our discussions, and we shall deal with it again this afternoon. We shall exchange our points of view and can set up a cooperative scheme on this subject.
Competition is an essential factor for growth and technical progress.
However, the problems it will raise are quite different from those with which we are familiar today. In the field of biotechnologies, for example, since more than one-third of products are manufactured by firms enjoying a world monopoly, the imbalance will become more pronounced. Similarly, in the field of advanced electronics, eight firms control seventy percent of the integrated circuits market. This concentration is to be intensified. Technological innovations are nevertheless essentially produced by small and medium-sized companies, and this is a good thing.