MNI: ECB Leaves Key Rates, Policy Unchanged: Text

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

Governing Council 

     January 23

     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.

     The Governing Council will continue to make net purchases under its asset

purchase programme (APP) at a monthly pace of EUR20 billion. 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 Governing Council also decided to launch a review of the ECB's monetary

policy strategy. Further details about the scope and timetable of the review

will be published in a press release today at 15:30 CET.

     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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