European Central Bank's Villeroy states that it is too early to assert the timing of interest rate hikes.

European Central Bank policymaker François Villeroy de Galhau said on Thursday that the ECB’s next interest-rate move is very likely to be a rate hike, but it is still too early to say when such a hike would start.

Villeroy, who also serves as head of the Banque de France, said that the current surge in energy prices is rapidly feeding through to overall inflation data for the euro area and France, but core inflation is still “firmly under control.”

Even so, the conflict in the Middle East has continued to escalate, bringing negative effects to the economic outlook; given the current situation, the scenario is more akin to the ECB’s moderate downside scenario rather than the baseline scenario on which the bank’s economic projections from last month were based.

Against this backdrop, Villeroy said in remarks at the Paris Institute of Political Studies that the ECB’s next interest-rate adjustment “will very likely be a further increase.”

He added: “It’s still too soon to judge the ECB’s rate-hike timetable, but we already have the ability to step in, when necessary, in a reasonable way, to manage and control rates.”

A massive amount of information and precise analysis are all available in the Sina Finance app

责任编辑：李肇孚