ECB, 기준금리 동결…코로나대응 채권긴급매입 늘려 돈 더푼다

The European Central Bank on Thursday decided to keep its key interest rate at a record low and inject half a trillion euros,... in a bid to stimulate recovery for the COVID-19 ravaged economy.
Choi Min-jung reports.

The European Central bank on Thursday decided to keep its interest rate benchmarks unchanged at historic lows to stimulate economic activity amid the worsening COVID-19 crisis.
In a move to encourage banks to lend money rather than hold onto it,... the ECB decided to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at zero-percent,... while holding its deposit rate at minus zero-point-five percent.
"The Governing Council decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged. We expect them to remain at their present or lower levels until we have seen the inflation outlook robustly converged to levels sufficiently close to but below two percent within our projection horizon…"
The central bank also decided to inject another 500 billion euros, or 606 billion US dollars, into its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program,… in a bid to limit the economic damage caused by COVID-19.
"We decided to increase the envelope of the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) by 500 billion euros, bringing it to a total of 1,850 billion euros."
The additional stimulus aims to financially support consumers, and help businesses and governments survive until enough vaccines are rolled out to ease the pandemic.
The president of the ECB however, warned that the Eurozone is still facing a high amount of uncertainty,.. as the distribution of vaccines will take months to inoculate the larger population.
Choi Min-jung, Arirang News.