Economic recovery arrives in 19 countries sharing euro: ECB officialApril 23, 2015 - 17:21 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Economic recovery has arrived in the 19 countries that share the euro, but it is up to governments to ensure it endures, European Central Bank executive board member Benoit Coeure said Thursday, April 23, according to AFP. "The eurozone recovery is clearly there. Growth is coming back, all business and household confidence indicators are pointing upwards. And the good news is that this recovery is rooted in domestic demand and in consumer spending in particular," Coeure told AFP in an interview. For the time being, however, the recovery is still "insufficient and somewhat unequally spread from country to country," he cautioned. "Our concern is that the current upturn is merely a cyclical one, that it's merely a flash in the pan." To help get the economy back on its feet, the ECB launched a massive one-trillion-euro bond purchase program, known as quantitative easing or QE, at the beginning of March, under which it aims to buy 60 billion euros ($64 billion) of bonds per month until September 2016, or more than 1.0 trillion euros in total. Coupled with the weaker euro and falling energy prices, the ECB scheme "is injecting a lot of fuel" into the economy, Coeure said. But these factors "are only transitory," he added, urging governments to turn up the pace of economic reform. "It's extremely important to 'convert the try', so that growth can become long term," the central banker said, using a term from the game of rugby. "This can be achieved via labor market reforms and by more generally creating a business environment that is more conducive to investment," he argued. "The real test will be a pick-up in investment in Europe this year," he added. To achieve this, "favorable financing conditions are needed. That's what we're doing, that's the role of the ECB. But people must also have plans and the desire to do business. That's the task of the governments." Coeure insisted there was no question of the ECB rolling back its QE program for the time being. "That's a discussion we might have later down the line," he conceded. At this stage, however, "we haven't encountered any technical problem in the implementation of the program. It's going very smoothly in all eurozone countries and market reaction has been exactly as we hoped," he said. QE "will have an accelerating effect on recovery, we're certain," Coeure said, adding that fears of a scarcity of bonds for the ECB to buy had proven unfounded. "We don't see any difficulty in buying all of the assets that we had planned to buy as part of this program," he insisted. Related links: Top stories Yerevan has dismissed Turkey’s demand to shut down the Armenian nuclear power plant as “inappropriate”. Armenia will loan 2.9 billion drams to Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh), according to a draft government decision. The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan has “strongly condemned” Armenia’s decision. Kerobyan has said that for the first time in the history of Armenia, the volume of foreign direct investments amounted to about $1 billion. Partner news | Scholz hopes Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty will be signed this year German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hopes that a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be signed this year. Ucom equips four bus stops in Ijevan with free Wi-Fi Ucom now provides free Wi-Fi coverage in smart bus stops in four communities of Ijevan. Armenians stage more campaigns against territorial concessions to Azerbaijan Protesters blocked more roads across Armenia on Friday, April 26 in continuing attempts to scuttle territorial concessions to Azerbaijan. Czech-Armenian military cooperation discussed in Yerevan A delegation led by the Director General for the Industrial Cooperation Division of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic visited Armenia. |