On the one hand, global trade may continue to grow more rapidly than expected, thereby supporting euro area exports. Moreover, strong business confidence could provide more support to domestic economic activity in the euro area than is currently expected. On the other hand, downside risks relate to the tensions in some segments of the financial markets and their potential spillover to the euro area real economy. Further downside risks relate to renewed increases in oil and other commodity prices, protectionist pressures and the possibility of a disorderly correction of global imbalances. With regard to price developments, euro area annual HICP inflation was 2.4% in January 2011, according to Eurostat’s flash estimate, after 2.2% in December. This further increase was broadly anticipated and largely reflects higher energy prices. Looking ahead to the next  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  few months, inflation rates could temporarily increase further and are likely to stay slightly above 2% for most of 2011, before moderating again around the turn of the year. Overall, we continue to see evidence of short-term upward pressure on overall inflation, mainly owing to energy and commodity prices. Such pressure is also discernible in the earlier stages of the production process. These developments have not so far affected our assessment that price developments will remain in line with price stability over the policy-relevant horizon. At the same time, very close monitoring is warranted.
At the same time, the yield curve has steepened somewhat further, implying that the attractiveness of short-term instruments included in M3 continues to decline compared with more highly remunerated longer-term instruments outside M3. On the counterpart side, the annual growth rate of bank loans to the private sector continued to conceal differences in the magnitude of growth across sectors. The growth of loans to non-financial corporations stood at –0.2% in December, after –0.1% in the previous month, while the growth of loans to households strengthened to 3.0% in December, after 2.8% in November. Taking into account the effect of derecognition of loans from bank balance sheets and looking through short-term volatility, the latest data confirm a continued gradual strengthening in the annual growth of lending to the non-financial private sector. At the same time, the latest data point to the overall size of bank balance sheets having contracted again after expanding for most of 2010, mainly on account of a reduction in lending between banks. It is important that banks continue to expand the provision of credit to the private sector, in an environment of increasing demand. To address this challenge, where necessary, it is essential for banks to retain earnings, to turn to the market to strengthen further their capital bases or to take full advantage of government support measures for recapitalisation. To sum up, the current key ECB interest rates still remain appropriate. We therefore decided to leave them unchanged.