The euro may drop against the dollar in Asia, extending its biggest loss yesterday since November, after European Central Bank officials expressed concern the currency's 12-month, 20 percent rally will slow growth.

ECB Council Member Christian Noyer said yesterday currency sales are an option. Council Member Ernst Welteke yesterday said the euro's strength risks slowing Germany's economic recovery, and ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said Monday he's worried about ``brutal'' swings in the exchange rate. Trichet and ECB council member Antonio Fazio will speak later today at the bank's first Euro-Mediterranean Seminar in Napoli. The euro held at $1.2647 at 9:05 a.m. in Tokyo, according to EBS prices. It yesterday dropped as low as 1.2630, after reaching a record high on Monday for the 11th day in 18. The euro may drop to $1.23 within a month, Takei said. Against the yen, it traded at 134.39, from 134.25 late yesterday in New York. ``There's no doubt Trichet is coming under more pressure from lawmakers crying out over the consequences of the speed of the euro's rally,'' said Minoru Shioiri, foreign exchange manager in Tokyo at Mitsubishi Securities Co., a unit Japan's biggest bank by market value. The European Central Bank should cut interest rates to stop the euro's rise against the dollar and protect the region's economic recovery, Italy's European Union Affairs Minister Rocco Buttiglione said in a televised interview with Bloomberg News in Rome yesterday.