The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) called on the European Central Bank on Tuesday to consider lowering its key interest rates to cope with its lagging economic growth.

"The euro area's sizeable negative output and unemployment gaps are currently widening and will only just begin to shrink, slowly, towards the end of 2005," the OECD said in an economic outlook.

"We have at the same time a weakening in inflationary tension and an economic climate that is going to remain soft for some time, " said OECD chief economist Jean-Philippe Cotis at a news conference.

"That has led us to favor a reduction in short-term interest rates by the central bank of 50 basis points (half a percentage point) between now and the end of spring," he said.

The European Central Bank has maintained its key policy rate at 2.0 percent since mid-2003, with inflation being held during this period to a little above 2.0 percent.

Source: Xinhua