If the latest surveys of business intentions are to be believed, the eurozone economy is sparkling, growing at a pace that easily explains the hints from some European Central Bank policymakers of a pull-back from their easy-money regime.

IHS Markit’s eurozone Flash Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), an influential guide to the buying plans of businesses and hence growth, hit a near six-year high this month.

It climbed to 56.7 from February’s 56.0, its highest reading since April 2011 and better than any predictions in a Reuters poll.

At the same time, flash surveys for the currency bloc’s two largest economies – Germany and France – also stormed past expectations to register near six-year highs, conditions likely to play into elections in both countries this year.

“This is a really solid rate of expansion. It’s an economy firing on all cylinders,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, said of the eurozone.

He added that it implied first quarter economic growth of 0.6 per cent quarter on quarter, which would be the joint highest reading since the first quarter of 2011.

One immediate impact may be to put pressure on the ECB to begin rolling back its historically easy monetary policy, a combination of zero to negative interest rates and a large asset-buying programme.

This is a really solid rate of expansion

Earlier this month, the ECB pledged to extend its bond-buying programme to at least the end of the year, citing weak underlying inflation and lacklustre growth in the eurozone. It will, however, reduce its monthly spend from April.

It also highlighted that it no longer felt a “sense of urgency” to take further action.

Since then, some ECB policymakers, notably Austria’s Ewald Nowotny and Italy’s Ignazio Visco, have spoken of a rate hike within or just after the period of the bond-buying programme.

“These [PMI] numbers will likely reinforce the ECB’s view that downside risks are diminishing. But the central bank will only tighten gradually,” Morgan Stanley said in a note.

The key will be inflation, control of which is the ECB’s primary mandate.

Markit’s eurozone PMI sub-index measuring prices charged by businesses rose to a near six-year high of 53.3.

Inflation in the eurozone was two per cent in February – around the ECB’s target.

“What we are picking up is an increase in suppliers’ ability to hike prices due to strong demand. If that continues to intensify, the ECB should become more worried,” Markit’s Williamson said.

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