The bond-buying plan unveiled by the European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday has laid the foundations for more prosperity in Europe, Bank of England chief Mark Carney said.

“I welcome the steps that the ECB took yesterday,” Carney told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“[They are] absolutely necessary to preserve the prospects of medium-term prosperity in Europe. This doesn’t deliver medium-term prosperity, it just creates the conditions for it.”

In the meantime, Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said yesterday he was not worried that diverging monetary policies in the United States and Europe will complicate his efforts to beat deflation at home. In an interview with Bloomberg TV from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kuroda welcomed the ECB’s decision.

“I don’t think it makes our job more difficult,” Kuroda said. Saying the euro has not fallen very much against the yen in the wake of the ECB move, he noted the European currency had already weakened a great deal over a long period.

He also said about the Federal Reserve’s likely move to raise interest rates this year after it ended the US experiment with quantitative easing. This expected “normalisation” of policy reflects strong US growth, which is good for the world economy, Kuroda said.

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