Sintra gets a forum to discuss inflation. Presence of the President of the European Central Bank

From this Monday until Wednesday, Sintra will be hosting central bankers, academics, policy makers and financial market experts at the ECB Forum to discuss inflation in a volatile environment.

The European Central Bank (ECB) event comes at a time when inflation continues to grab the attention of decision makers after dominating the debate last year.

ECB President Christine Lagarde will kick off the day this Monday with a welcome dinner, during which Gita Gopinath, Deputy Director General of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will speak.

The debate doesn’t start until Tuesday morning with a speech by Christine Lagarde, who last week, after the last meeting of the Board of Governors, announced a 25 basis point hike in interest rates.

The interest rate on the main refinancing operations rose to 4%, the rate on the deposit line rose to 3.50%, and the interest rate on the margin credit line rose to 4.25% from June 21.

Christine Lagarde acknowledged that a new interest rate hike is highly likely at the institution’s next meeting in July, while the Governor of the Bank of Portugal (BdP) a day later said he hoped there would be more predictability about the path after the summer. interest rates from the ECB, as new data on inflation will be received.

The choice of the ECB differed from the decision of the US Federal Reserve System (FRS), which at the last meeting preferred to keep the base interest rate band.

However, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell last week acknowledged further interest rate hikes in the coming months, depending on economic data.

On June 16, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to maintain its monetary easing strategy, which includes ultra-low rates, in anticipation of more positive signs of economic growth and slowing inflation.

As such, he kept negative benchmark interest rates and target interest rates on 10-year government bonds at around 0%, noting that Japan’s economy has been growing in recent quarters “despite being affected by factors such as high prices energy into the past”, given that financial conditions have “improved”.

For its part, the Bank of England (BoE) announced its 13th consecutive rate hike last Thursday, this time by 50 basis points, from 4.5% to 5%, the highest level since 2008, after inflation in the United Kingdom exceeded the analysts’ forecast (8.7% in May).

The event will last until Wednesday, the day when central banks from the ECB, the Fed, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England come together to discuss monetary policy.