Millennium BCP’s CEO, Miguel Maya, said today that the cost of credit should continue to fall, considering that the uncertainty is “only about the pace”.
“We have already started a new monetary policy cycle. The reduction in interest rates is already a reality, with only the pace remaining uncertain,” said Miguel Maya in his opening speech at the Millennium Talks conference, taking place today in Lisbon.
On June 6, the European Central Bank (ECB) cut its key interest rates by 25 basis points, after having kept them at the highest level since 2001 for five meetings and having made 10 increases since July 21, 2022.
In view of this drop in key rates, the bank’s CEO considered that “there are grounds” for confidence “in a favorable evolution of the macroeconomic context”, referring to the sentiment of the governor of the Bank of Portugal (BoP).
“The governor of the Bank of Portugal [Mário Centeno] has already signaled that he is confident about the evolution of the conditions for the monetary policy of reducing interest rates to continue,” said Miguel Maya.
Even so, he pointed out that there are “multiple factors that could cause the narrative to diverge from reality”, highlighting the “evolution of the conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine, or the possible reversal of US policy in order to condition world trade”.
Miguel Maya called for reforms to ensure the competitiveness of companies.
“We have to demand a vision of the future from ourselves and our leaders,” he said, adding that “the vast majority of Portuguese know that only with economic prosperity is it possible to seriously envisage improving people’s living conditions”.
“The country has to be competitive in terms of the factors that are crucial to attracting and retaining talent and investment in Portugal,” he said, highlighting the need for fiscal competitiveness, predictability and speed in the justice system and speeding up investment licensing.
