KOF Monetary Policy Communicator for the Euro Area, April 2019
The KOF MPC figure for 10 April 2019 is 0.31. The ECB communicated that an ample degree of monetary accommodation is still needed to ensure convergence of inflation to the ECB’s aim.
At today’s meeting, the ECB’s Governing Council decided to keep all key ECB interest rates unchanged. Interest rates are expected to remain at their present levels at least through the summer of 2019 and principal payments will be reinvested past the date when the ECB starts to raise rates.
Euro area annual HICP inflation was 1.4% in March 2019, after 1.5% in February. This development mainly reflected a decline in food, services and non-energy industrial goods price inflation. Measures of underlying inflation remain generally muted, however further employment gains and rising wage growth will support an increase over the medium term. The Governing Council’s risks assessment is still tilted to the downside because of the persistence of uncertainties related to geopolitical factors, the threat of protectionism and
vulnerabilities in emerging markets.
Current ECB holdings of securities for monetary policy purposes amount to 2,635bn euros (end of February: 2,640bn euros).