Signs of stabilisation in eurozone amid risk—ECB chief

ABU DHABI—The eurozone is showing signs of stabilization in some economic activities but significant downward risks linger, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said on Thursday.

“We have seen tentative signs of stabilization of economic activity at a low level” in the eurozone, Draghi told reporters after a meeting between European and Gulf central bankers in Abu Dhabi.

He said the tentative signs were showing amid “significant downward risks.”

“We see a softening business cycle in Europe with a significant downward risk,” he said.

Draghi was speaking a day after Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg premier who heads the eurogroup, said the World Bank had slashed its global growth forecasts.

“In the eurozone we are on the brink of a technical recession,” he said, referring to the term used for two consecutive quarters registering falls in GDP.

On Tuesday, the World Bank slashed its 2012 growth forecasts from 3.6 percent to 2.5 percent and warned that rich nations’ debt problems may yet reap a crisis that would eclipse the tumult of 2008.