The European Central Bank left its quantitative-easing program unchanged as policy makers wait to see if a pickup in inflation will be sustained.
The Governing Council reaffirmed its December decision that asset purchases will be reduced to 60 billion euros ($64 billion) a month from April, from 80 billion euros currently. Policy makers also kept the main refinancing rate at zero and the deposit rate at minus 0.4 percent, as predicted by all economists in a Bloomberg survey. President Mario Draghi will explain his assessment of the euro-area economy in a press conference at 2:30 p.m. in Frankfurt.
