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ECB details anti-deflation cash splurge

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
ECB details anti-deflation cash splurge
Photo: dpa

The European Central Bank (ECB) is flooding the European markets with money by buying up government bonds, hoping to push prices on consumer goods back up.

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ECB President Mario Draghi announced on Thursday that the ECB will begin its purchases of government bonds on March 9th. 

The purchases should continue until September 2016 and reach a value of €60 billion per month, pumping a total of €1.1 trillion into financial markets.

The programme would be continued if by this date inflation still had not approached the bank's goal of 2 percent, Draghi said.

He claimed that since the programme was announced in January the situation had already improved.

Bank lending had increased and the mood among consumers and companies had brightened, he said.

But in the current year the effects on retail prices are likely to remain limited, according to the most recent ECB forecast.

Europe's monetary authorities expect that inflation in 2015 will sink to 0.0 percent - meaning that retail prices will not rise at all.

Falling oil prices have also affected the ECB's prognosis, which has been lowered from a previous estimate of 0.7 percent inflation for the year.

In the next two years, the money splurge should, according to the forecast, have an effect on retail prices.

Retail costs are expected to rise 1.5 percent in 2016 and 1.8 percent in 2017.

The good news was an expectation that instead of 1 percent growth this year, the experts now hope for growth of 1.5 percent.

They are expecting growth to reach 2.1 percent by 2017.

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