ECB policymaker dampens talk of rate rise

It is too early for the European Central Bank to start thinking about an exit from its expansive monetary policy, ECB executive board member Joerg Asmussen said on Thursday. "For us it's clear. It's too early to think about an exit at the moment," Asmussen told an event in the German capital. In order to beat the eurozone's long and debilitating debt crisis, the ECB has slashed its key interest rates to all-time lows, pumped more than 1.0 trillion euros ($1.35 trillion) into the banking system and drawn up a scheme to buy up the sovereign bonds of the hardest-hit countries.   On the other side of the Atlantic, the US Federal Reserve has also pulled out the stops to prop up the economy. But it has recently indicated it may soon taper its bond-buying programme, a prospect that has fuelled speculation about when the ECB might follow suit. Asmussen pointed out, however, that the economic situation in the United States was not comparable to that in Europe.