Confident ECB to pull the plug on its bond-buying programme in December
Riga, Latvia — The European Central Bank (ECB) said on Thursday that it would end in December the mass bond-buying used to buttress the eurozone economy, in a sign of confidence in the outlook for growth and inflation in the bloc. "After September 2018 … the monthly pace of the net asset purchases will be reduced to €15bn until the end of December 2018 … net purchases will then end," a spokeswoman said. But the governors included a note of caution by making the step "subject to incoming data" showing inflation remains on track. Central bankers’ bond buys — currently set at €30bn a month — and ultra-low interest rates are designed to stoke growth in the 19-nation single currency area and power price growth to their target of just below 2.0%. More than three years after president Mario Draghi unleashed the quantitative easing (QE) programme, policy makers said a review at their meeting in the Latvian capital Riga of economic data and internal ECB forecasts convinced them they were on ...
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