YEREVAN, December 4. / ARKA /. The European Central Bank has left its key interest rates unchanged at its regular monthly policy meeting on Thursday, Prime reported.

As widely expected, the ECB said in a statement that it was holding its main "refinancing" rate steady at 0.05 per cent, and its two other rates - the marginal lending and the deposit rates - at 0.30 per cent and minus 0.20 per cent respectively.

The central bank is buying asset-backed securities and covered bonds under programs announced in September. The ECB expects these measures, along with cheap four-year loans to banks, to raise the volume of its balance sheet by about 1 trillion euros ($1.23 trillion). The size of a central bank’s balance sheet is an indication of how accommodative its policies are to promoting investment and economic growth.

There are increasing doubts in financial markets as to whether these policies will do the trick, raising pressure on the ECB to do more. Some top members of the ECB’s 24-member Governing Council have voiced openness to large-scale purchases of sovereign bonds, known as quantitative easing or QE.-0-