Economists fearing shallow recovery see Draghi enlarging QE

Frankfurt

MARIO Draghi's promise that the European Central Bank is willing to step up stimulus if needed is resonating with economists, who see the euro-area recovery as too shallow to be sustained.

More than two-thirds of respondents in a Bloomberg survey predict the ECB's president will expand or extend the 1.14 trillion-euro (S$1.82 trillion) quantitative-easing programme, and almost all of those say he'll do so within nine months.

While an increasing number of respondents see the economy improving for now, they're also fretting that the upturn won't last long.

The ECB's Governing Council has already shown concern that a slowdown in global trade will erode exports, a pillar of the regional recovery, before domestic demand is strong enough to compensate. The central bank this month cut…