On Tuesday German Industrial Production data was released. In April 2016, production in industry was up by 0.8% from the previous month on a price, seasonally and working day adjusted basis according to provisional data of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). This was in line with market expectations. In March 2016, the corrected figure shows a decreased of 1.1% (primary –1.3%) from February 2016.
Though there were no major data releases from Eurozone, till the end of the week, The Wall Street Journal reported that European Central Bank President Mario Draghi urged European governments to play their part in boosting growth and inflation in the region, warning that a lack of economic reforms is making the ECB’s job harder. “If other policies are not aligned with monetary policy, inflation risks returning to our objective at a slower pace,” Mr. Draghi said in a speech to policy makers in Brussels.
The ECB has unleashed a sweeping range of stimulus measures in recent years, from negative interest rates to more than a trillion euros of bond purchases. But inflation remains far short of the central bank’s target of just below 2%, coming in at minus 0.1% last month. The ECB “can act decisively to support demand, to stabilize inflation expectations and to avert [knock-on] effects on wages and prices, which is exactly what the ECB has done over the past two years,” Mr. Draghi said. But government policies also influence the speed of the economic recovery, he said.
This week markets will be looking at:
Industrial Production (Tuesday 11:00)
Trade Balance (Wednesday 11:00)
Final CPI (Thursday 11:00)
Current Account (Friday 10:00)
