- Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Group
The Eurozone M3 money supply increase slowed unexpectedly last month, the European Central Bank said on Monday. Growth of M3, which measures the change in the total quantity of domestic currency in circulation and deposited in banks among the region, decelerated to 3.3% in December, down from 3.8% in November, while analysts had predicted M3 money supply to accelerate to 3.9%. At the same time, loans to the private sector lost 0.8% from a year ago, while both loans to households and lending for house purchase rose 0.5% and 1.3%, respectively. At the same time, the monthly flow of loans to non-financial firms dropped 22 billion euros in December, after declining by 7 billion euros in the preceding month.
"A key issue is whether the global economy is just hitting another bout of turbulence in what was always expected to be a slow and bumpy recovery or whether the current slowdown has a more lasting component," the IMF said.
"There is only so much a central bank can do," Coene, who heads Belgium's central bank, said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 26. "Governments can make the adjustments that are needed to make the economy grow again."
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