MNI: ECB Leaves Key Rates, Policy Unchanged: Text

     LONDON (MNI) - Below is the text released by the European Central Bank's

Governing Council 

     October 24

     Monetary policy decisions 

     At today's meeting the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB)

decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the

interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will

remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50% respectively. The Governing Council

expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels

until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level

sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within its projection horizon, and such

convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics.

     As decided at the last Governing Council meeting in September, net

purchases will be restarted under the Governing Council's asset purchase

programme (APP) at a monthly pace of E20 billion as from 1 November. The

Governing Council expects them to run for as long as necessary to reinforce the

accommodative impact of its policy rates, and to end shortly before it starts

raising the key ECB interest rates.

     The Governing Council intends to continue reinvesting, in full, the

principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP for an

extended period of time past the date when it starts raising the key ECB

interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable

liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation.

     The President of the ECB will comment on the considerations underlying

these decisions at a press conference starting at 14:30 CET today.

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2225; email: les.commons@marketnews.com

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