LONDON, Oct 2 - Following are comments from analysts on the European Central Bank's news conference on Thursday. Earlier the bank's council decided to leave its benchmark refi rate at 2.0 percent. Latest comment ROBERT PRIOR-WANDESFORDE, HSBC, LONDON "His comments don't signal much of a change -- growth risks are balanced and that they expect inflation to fall below two percent. It shows a little bit more concern about monetary growth, which follows on from Issing's speech yesterday. "He largely repeated his comments on the stability pact. I think he is being a little too harsh. It's not as if any euro zone country is embarking on a huge fiscal easing. We estimate that the overall fiscal position of the euro zone will be broadly neutral next year after a slight tightening this year. Part of the reason why they are running into fiscal problems is because interest rates should be lower then they are. "The decision not to cut was no surprise and one would expect them to remain on hold for some time to come. We still think that the next move is down next March."
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LORENZO CODOGNO, BANK OF AMERICA, LONDON
"It's pretty balanced and suggesting that the ECB is pretty much comfortable with their current stands...the ECB will probably remain on hold from now onwards...barring two developments -- first, reasonably low growth in terms of import prices, secondly wage development. "Wage growth is not expected to move up sharply, but on the import side clearly you'll have a risk stemming from the euro appreciation. "So should the euro appreciate, I think this is still consistent with another cut in interest rates but this is not the base-line scenario of the ECB, and certainly not our own."//