mario draghi : ecb press conference - introductory statement introductory statement by mr mario draghi, president of the european central bank, and mr luis de guindos, vice - president of the european central bank, vilnius, 6 june 2019. * * * ladies and gentlemen, the vice - president and i are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. i would like to thank chairman of the board vasiliauskas for his kind hospitality and express our special gratitude to his staff for the excellent organisation of today ’ s meeting of the governing council. we will now report on the outcome of our meeting. based on our regular economic and monetary analyses, we have conducted a thorough assessment of the economic and inflation outlook, also taking into account the latest staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area. as a result, the governing council took the following decisions in the pursuit of its price stability objective. first, we decided to keep the key ecb interest rates unchanged. we now expect them to remain at their present levels at least through the first half of 2020, and in any case for as long as necessary to ensure the continued sustained convergence of inflation to levels that are below, but close to, 2 % over the medium term. second, we intend to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the asset purchase programme for an extended period of time past the date when we start raising the key ecb interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation. third, regarding the modalities of the new series of quarterly targeted longer - term refinancing operations ( tltro iii ), we decided that the interest rate in each operation will be set at a level that is 10 basis points above the average rate applied in the eurosystem ’ s main refinancing operations over the life of the respective tltro. for banks whose eligible net lending exceeds a benchmark, the rate applied in tltro iii will be lower, and can be as low as the average interest rate on the deposit facility prevailing over the life of the operation plus 10 basis points. a press release with further details of the terms of tltro iii will be published at 15 : 30 cet today. the governing council also assessed that, at this point in time, the positive contribution of negative interest rates to the accommodative monetary policy stance and to

. 4 % in 2020 and 1. 4 % in 2021. compared with the march 2019 ecb staff macroeconomic projections, the outlook for real gdp growth has been revised up by 0. 1 percentage points for 2019 and has been revised down by 0. 2 percentage points for 2020 and by 0. 1 percentage points for 2021. the risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook remain tilted to the downside, on account of the prolonged presence of uncertainties, related to geopolitical factors, the rising threat of protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets. according to eurostat ’ s flash estimate, euro area annual hicp inflation was 1. 2 % in may 2019, after 1. 7 % in april, reflecting mainly lower energy and services price inflation. on the basis of current futures prices for oil, headline inflation is likely to decline over the coming months, before rising again towards the end of year. looking through the recent volatility due to temporary factors, measures of underlying inflation remain generally muted, but labour cost pressures continue to strengthen and broaden amid high levels of capacity utilisation and tightening labour markets. looking ahead, underlying inflation is expected to increase over the medium term, supported by our monetary policy measures, the ongoing economic expansion and stronger wage growth. this assessment is also broadly reflected in the june 2019 eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area, which foresee annual hicp inflation at 1. 3 % in 2019, 1. 4 % in 2020 and 1. 6 % in 2021. compared with the march 2019 ecb staff macroeconomic projections, the outlook for hicp inflation has been revised up by 0. 1 percentage points for 2019 and revised down by 0. 1 percentage points for 2020. turning to the monetary analysis, broad money ( m3 ) growth stood at 4. 7 % in april 2019, after 4. 6 % in march. sustained rates of broad money growth reflect ongoing bank credit creation for the private sector and low opportunity costs of holding m3. the narrow monetary aggregate m1 continues to be the main contributor to broad money growth on the components side. the annual growth rate of loans to non - financial corporations increased to 3. 9 % in april 2019, from 3. 6 % in march. beyond short - term volatility, the annual growth rate of loans to non - financial corporations has moderated somewhat in recent months from its peak in september 2018, reflecting the typical lagged reaction to the slowdown in economic growth observed over