Not pre-committed to a particular rate path (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - Frankfurt, 18 Jul - The European Central Bank said that its Governing Council decided to keep its three key ECB interest rates unchanged.

Consequently, the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility remain unchanged at 4.25%, 4.50% and 3.75% respectively.

"The incoming information broadly supports the Governing Council's previous assessment of the medium-term inflation outlook. While some measures of underlying inflation ticked up in May owing to one-off factors, most measures were either stable or edged down in June. In line with expectations, the inflationary impact of high wage growth has been buffered by profits. Monetary policy is keeping financing conditions restrictive. At the same time, domestic price pressures are still high, services inflation is elevated and headline inflation is likely to remain above the target well into next year," the central bank said.

The ECB said that it is determined to ensure that inflation returns to its 2% medium-term target in a timely manner. It will keep policy rates sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary to achieve this aim, it added.

"The Governing Council will continue to follow a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restriction. In particular, its interest rate decisions will be based on its assessment of the inflation outlook in light of the incoming economic and financial data, the dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission.

The Governing Council is not pre-committing to a particular rate path," it added.

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(RADIOCOR) 18-07-24 14:28:50 (0419) 5 NNNN