ECB says premature to discuss new QE programme

FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank feels it is too early to start discussing a new round of monetary policy easing, a top official said Monday, but insisted that the ECB was still ready to act if needed.
"If anything were needed, we would need to be ready," ECB executive board member Benoit Coeure told CNBC Television in an interview. In March, the ECB launched a highly controversial programme of bond purchases, known as quantitative easing or QE, to push eurozone inflation back up to levels that are more conducive to healthy economic growth. Initially, the programme -- under which the ECB plans to buy as much as 1.1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) of bonds at a rate of 60 billion euros per month until September 2016 -- appeared to work. But a renewed decline in oil prices and the economic slowdown in China has pushed area-wide inflation expectations back down, reigniting fears of a potentially dangerous downward spiral of falling prices.