The Swiss franc’s recent weakening against the euro is a positive development but the trend was “fragile”, Swiss National Bank governing board member Andrea Maechler said on Thursday.
“Overall, the trends are pointing in the right direction for the Swiss franc, but it is too early to say whether these trends are sustainable,” Maechler told an economic conference in Yverdon-Les-Bains.
The eurozone’s unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level in more than eight years, but the annual rate of inflation is unchanged, new data showed Monday, highlighting the challenge at the heart of the European Central Bank’s decision on dialing down its stimulus programs.
The European Union’s statistics agency said the proportion of workers without jobs across the 19 countries that use the euro fell to 9.1% in June from 9.2% in May, reaching its lowest level since February 2009. But consumer prices were just 1.3% higher in July than a year earlier, as the rate of inflation was unchanged, at its lowest level in 2017.
Economists wax eloquent over the platitude that debt stifles growth. It is therefore not surprising that growth in the US has slowed since 2008 and Europe struggles to match pre-crisis results.
The Bank of England on Thursday ramped up its UK economic growth forecasts for the next three years, despite the threat of Brexit storm clouds.
The bank voted unanimously in its February meeting to keep interest rates at the record low level of 0.25% and keep its quantitative easing (QE) purchase targets at up to £10 billion ($12.6 billion) for corporate bonds and £435 billion for U.K. government bonds.
Then, the British central bank lifted its 2017 economic growth prediction to 2.0% from a 1.4% forecast signalling the better-than expected performance of the UK economy since the June referendum.
The BOE still believes growth will slow as Brexit negotiations begin, predicting GDP growth of 1.6% in 2018 and 1.7% in 2019. That was up from growth estimates of 1.5% and 1.6% respectively.
“The most interesting part of Thursday’s events will be Mark Carney’s press conference. The Bank will probably revise up their forecasts for inflation and growth in the short term. So Mr Carney is bound to be asked why he’s not planning on raising interest rates in response. The answer will be that the central bank looks beyond this kind of inflation because it thinks it won’t last.
Inflation has been the target of central bank policies since the beginning of the crisis.
