Paris: The European Central Bank held its key interest rates unchanged at its regular monthly policy meeting on Thursday.
As widely expected, the ECB said in a statement that it was holding its main "refinancing" rate steady at 0.05 percent, and its two other rates -- the marginal lending and the deposit rates -- at 0.30 percent and minus 0.20 percent respectively.
ECB President Mario Draghi was scheduled to explain the reasoning behind the decisions at his monthly news conference.
But despite growing pressure for more action to ward off the spectre of deflation in the single currency area, Draghi is unlikely to announce any new measures, arguing instead that a recent raft of policy moves still need time to unfold, analysts said.
Earlier in Paris, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) urged the ECB to step up support for the eurozone economy that its sees as posing a major risk to slowing world growth.
"Given the very weak economy and the risk of deflation, the ECB should expand its monetary support beyond currently announced measures, building on the positive effects to date," the OECD said.
"This should include a commitment to sizeable asset purchases (`quantitative easing`) until inflation is back on track," it said, adding that the purchases could include government bonds, which the ECB has so far shunned due to political sensitivities in Europe about the central bank underwriting government spending.
