MNI BRIEF: EZ Confidence Pick-up Points To Consumption Bounce
MNI (LONDON) - An ECB Banking Lending Survey showing a modest pick-up in loan demand for families, along with an improvement in euro area confidence indicators could mean that savings ratios are finding a peak which could be an early indicator of higher consumption in the coming future Bank of Latvia's Governor Martins Kazaks said Thursday.
Kazaks, speaking in Washington D.C, saw inflation hitting the 2% sustainable target at an earlier time than envisaged in the September staff projections, which pointed to Q4 2025. The Governing Council should remove restriction once prices get to the 2% target in a sustained way, he added.
Risks to growth are tilted to the downside, Kazaks noted, but uncertainty is very high, he said, noting that correlations between survey PMI data and "hard" growth has been "loose" lately.