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Europe is also in an emergency because prices have risen so much.
As consumer prices surged more than 8% last month, the European Central Bank has also started to catch up.
The base rate was raised for the first time in 11 years, and the increase was also large.
It increased by 0.5 percentage points at a time.
Correspondent Ahn Sang-woo.
<Reporter> The
European Central Bank ECB held a monetary policy meeting in Frankfurt, Germany yesterday (21st) local time and decided to raise the base rate by 0.5 percentage points from 0% to 0.5%.
It is the first time the ECB has raised its benchmark interest rate in 11 years since 2011.
With this decision, the era of zero interest rates, which has been maintained for more than six years since March 2016, has come to an end.
[Christine Lagarde/President of the European Central Bank: We have decided to raise rates by 50 basis points (0.5 percentage points) in the three major European Central Banks.
We decided that it was appropriate to take a bigger first step toward normalizing monetary policy (than previously predicted).]
The surprise 'big step' of the ECB, which had predicted a 0.25 percentage point increase in interest rates at a monetary policy meeting last month, is the risk of inflation. because of.
In fact, consumer price inflation in the eurozone last month jumped 8.6% from a year earlier, the highest level since statistics were compiled.
[Christine Lagarde/President of the European Central Bank: The impact of high inflation on purchasing power, continued supply constraints and increased uncertainty are weakening our economy.]
In addition, the ECB also approved the introduction of TPI, a new bond purchase program, to respond to the risk of rising interest rates on government bonds in eurozone countries such as Italy and Spain after the policy rate hike decision was made at this meeting.