Brussels, 27/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to leave its key rates unchanged after the meeting of its Governing Council. The ECB kept at 3.75% the minimum bid rate on the main refinancing operations, and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 4.75% and 2.75% respectively.
Furthermore, the annual rate of growth of the M3, monetary mass in the euro-zone (an advanced inflation indicator closely followed by the ECB to define its monetary policy), accelerated in August by 6.7%, against 6.4% growth in July, it was announced by the Frankfurt Institute. The average annual M3 growth rates covering the June-August period (considered by the ECB as the most reliable) was 6.4%, as opposed to 5.9% during the May-July period. The M3 rate of growth remains clearly above the reference value (4.5%) fixed by the Frankfurt issuing institute. The ECB stresses that M3 growth remains subject to "distortion" after being unjustifiably taken into account in the statistics on monetary assets held by non-residents of the euro-zone. This distortion had reached 0.75 of a percentage point over the past few months, which makes the rate of M3 growth in August 5.95%, and the quarterly average 5.65%. The evolution of the M3 monetary mass reflects the weakness of stock markets which means that consumers find short term investment included in the M3 aggregate more attractive, stresses the ECB.
Furthermore, a spokesman for the ECB has confirmed that the Eurosystem (ECB and the 12 national central banks of the euro zone) bought euros on Thursday as opposed to yens on behalf of the Bank of Japan, while refusing to specify the amount of the operation. This is the third operation of its kind this week.