Jim O’Neill. Photo: courtesy of cngfotography.com

Jim O’Neill is not afraid of calling a spade a spade. And that is true whether the particular spade is Germany, the European Central Bank, or just plain old traditional thinking.

Take, for example, the facts about Chinese trade.

“China is transforming patterns of world trade but policymakers are trying to ignore this,” he said. “They still think that the big European countries are important to each other.

“They have a static vision of the world. For example, the importance of the US-EU trade deal – the TTIP – is exaggerated... It is important to be a member of the World Trade Organisation, but the TTIP? Bilateral deals are important but China is rapidly becoming one of the main importers and that was without being part of any of these trade deals.”

He pointed out that the common view is still stuck in China as the ‘exporter’ whereas the truth is that it is not the top export market for Japan, and the third largest for the US.

And it was not only trading patterns which are changing. The rising labour costs in China also meant that Mexic, once of the victim of China’s cheap exports, was now the beneficiary of China’s changing role as its labour now cheaper.

Mr O’Neill, who is best known outside financial circles because he coined the acronym BRIC, (Brazil, Russia, India and China) is an economist who has worked for prestigious entities – at least before banks became four-letter words – like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. He is also famous for his grasp on foreign currency markets.

He was in Malta recently as one of the key speakers at the Economist Business Roundtable and took some time out to talk to reporters. In half an hour, he had touched on most of the pressing world issues – including whether Moyes should stay on as coach at Manchester United, which inspires a particularly virulent passion in him.

He was utterly dismissive about claims that the financial crisis is over, or at least nearly over.

“Crises happen all the time! Greed and fear are close cousins and these lead to illogical behaviour that are the root of the crises,” he said.

He was quite happy to point the finger for current eurozone instability at Germany, asking whether it might actually enjoy forcing a crisis because jittery markets would then turn to it to take the decisions it wanted to take in the first place.

Germany’s current account surplus also came in for some stick, as he said it was forcing banks to take their money out of the country, and being put instead into “dangerous exposures”, he said.

He was just as dismissive of Germany’s role in the economic and monetary union and of EMU as a whole.

“The EMU was about post-war politics. If they could only admit that, then it might just be easier to move ahead and find a new, more relevant solution,” he said.