The European Central Bank (ECB) was more optimistic …
The European Central Bank (ECB) was more optimistic about its inflation forecast for 2015 in the euro zone but has slightly lowered the growth for 2017, announced by the banks president yesterday, Wednesday.
The monetary institution has slightly lowered its forecast for growth in gross domestic product (GDP) of the euro area in 2017, to 2%, and has left unchanged those for 2015 and 2016, said Mario Draghi.
The ECB continues to anticipate growth of 1.5% this year and 1.9% next year in the currency bloc, as in March, said Mr Draghi. The previous forecast for 2017 was 2.1%.
This slight change in the forecast, however, not changed the general expectations of the ECB.
“In the future, we expect that the economic recovery to continue growing,” said Draghi. Consumer purchasing, the pillar of the current reboot, must be supported by the extensive asset purchases by the ECB, and moderate oil prices.
At the same time, the guardians of the euro have raised their inflation forecast for the eurozone in 2015 to 0.3%, and those left unchanged for 2016 and 2017.
The ECB continues to expect inflation to 1.5% in 2016 and 1.8% in 2017, a scenario in line with its target of inflation close to but slightly below 2%. She expected so far at zero inflation for 2015.
Draghi reiterated that the ECB was dedicated to “the full implementation of its monetary policy measures” to correct inflation. He reiterated that the vast program of public and private debt buybacks, known as the “QE”, “should continue until the end of September 2016”.
He also felt that the program, which should allow to inject over 1,100 billion euros into the economy of the euro zone, “is going well.”
Good news for the ECB, prices in the euro area started to increase in May for the first time since November. Inflation, even zero in April, accelerated to 0.3% year on year.
