The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday, March 5, edition that central banks are close to winning the battle against a global inflation surge, said the Bank for International Settlements on Monday. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that there was cause for "cautious optimism," according to the latest quarterly report from the BIS. BIS's Claudio Borio said: "Central banks have taken decisive action and thus prevented inflation from becoming entrenched. At the same time, economic activity has been remarkably resilient and the financial system has held up well." The BIS has been gradually becoming more hopeful about the outlook. At the end of last year it said progress in beating back inflation had been encouraging, but stressed at that point that central banks were not out of the woods. While there was the usual caution that risks remain, Mr. Borio noted this time how the "daylight" had narrowed significantly between when markets expect interest rates to start falling again and what the big central banks have been signalling. He said, "The fact that financial markets have converged on central bank views suggests that, on this occasion at least, central banks had a better appreciation of the risks."