-
ECB Officials Signal More Rate Increases This Year as Economy Strengthens
European Central Bank Governing Council members signaled they will keep tightening monetary policy this year to curb inflation as the economy strengthens. Investor expectations that the benchmark interest rate will be increased by another 50 basis points in 2011 are “well- founded,” Austria’s Ewald Nowotny told Bloomberg News in Washington on April 16. Luc Coene of Belgium said in an interview yesterday that monetary “conditions are too accommodative.” The suggestion that the ECB will soon raise its key rate again was echoed by other policy makers at the weekend meeting of the International Monetary Fund, ... (full story)