Negative rates to stay as long as needed: IMF official

London

INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund director Jose Vinals said central banks will continue to push interest rates further below zero if policy makers decide that's best for the economy.

"They could go lower," Mr Vinals, director of the IMF's monetary and capital markets department, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Thursday. "What's important is that each central bank in each particular country and region assess whether the benefits of negative rates are higher than the costs and if that's the case, negative rates will remain."