ECB cuts growth, inflation forecasts

FRANKFURT, March 7 (Reuters) – The European Central Bank slashed its growth and inflation forecasts for 2019 and lowered those for 2020 and 2021 on Thursday, acknowledging that Europe’s slowdown is longer and deeper than earlier thought.

With a global trade war weighing on confidence, industrial production and exports have taken a dip, exacerbated by a string of domestic difficulties, from German industry’s struggle to adapt to new car emissions regulations to protests in France.

Germany, the bloc’s biggest economy, stagnated last quarter and Italy is in outright recession, raising the risk that a temporary slowdown becomes a more lasting downturn as business confidence is sapped by a steady flow of negative news.

The following are the ECB staff’s new projections for inflation and GDP growth, with December forecasts in brackets. The ECB updates projections once a quarter.