(Adds CEO's views on creating a European rating agency)
BERLIN -(Dow Jones)- Creating a European rating agency would help Deutsche Bank AG (DB) and other firms reduce their dependence on U.S. agencies, Chief Executive Josef Ackermann said Thursday.
"We would welcome this," Ackermann told an industry conference in Berlin, adding that finding funding for such an agency has proved difficult.
Such an agency could prevent missteps that helped fuel the current crisis, Ackermann said, including a failure by overburdened agencies to understand complex, "exotic" financial products.
Ackermann also said that after moving to save faltering firms and prop up the economy, governments should retreat as soon as possible from direct intervention in companies and markets.
"The subsidization of individual firms threatens German economic culture," Ackermann said.
He also said that trust in financial markets hasn't returned to adequate levels. He added there are reasons to be optimistic, but the road to recovery remains "bumpy."
"The situation is fragile," Ackermann said. "Definite setbacks are possible," he added.
-By Patrick McGroarty, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 30 28 884 128; patrick.mcgroarty@dowjones.com