Draghi defends ECB stimulus measures
LONDON: Mario Draghi took his defence of his stimulus measures to students in Portugal, where he argued that young people will benefit from the revival of euroarea growth.
Youth unemployment “is declining but it’s still very high’’, the European Central Bank (ECB) president said at ISEG Lisbon School of Economics and Management on Monday. “The millennials that found a job because of our policy, I’m pretty sure they are okay” with the ECB’s strategy.
Four years into an economic expansion, the euro-zone economy is looking so robust that some policymakers are urging the ECB to start planning to wind down its €2.3 trillion (RM11.15 trillion) bond-buying plan after the end of this year. Yet they didn’t even discuss such a tapering strategy when they met this month, with Draghi noting the low-quality nature of the new jobs being created and calling for patience.
The president later headed to nearby Sintra for the annual ECB Forum, where he hosted a dinner attended by former United States Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. Draghi said the euro area was “facing robust growth across countries” in contrast to the previous year’s event when growth was more fragile and the United Kingdom had just voted to leave the European Union.
He’ll join a panel discussion today with Bank of England governor Mark Carney, Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda and Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz.
Portugal, the homeland of ECB vice-president Vitor Constancio, is typical of large parts of the 19nation currency bloc, with the jobless rate plummeting to less than 10 per cent from a high of 17.5 per cent at the start of 2013. The rate for people aged 15-24 is down to 24 per cent from more than 40 per cent. Bloomberg