The economic projections to be published by the European Central Bank for the first time next month will have a two-year horizon and take the form of ranges of prospective economic growth and inflation for the euro zone, Mr Wim Duisenberg, the ECB president, disclosed yesterday.

Stressing that the ECB's figures would be projections rather than forecasts, he warned the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee they would play "an important, albeit limited, role" in the context of ECB strategy.

"The projections are produced by staff experts and do not embody the policy judgments of the governing council," he said. "One should not expect policy decisions to respond mechanically to developments in the published macroeconomic projections . . . The governing council is neither responsible for the content of these projections nor should its performance be judged against them."

Mr Duisenberg said the projections would encompass the growth of real gross domestic product and its components and inflation as measured by the European Union's harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP).

The bank would publish figures for exports and imports and real consumption and investment. The inflation projection would be for annual averages rather than year-end inflation.

There were several indicators the ECB would not publish, including projections of the current account balance, labour market data, or country by country analysis of the euro zone.

Mr Duisenberg was unable to give MEPs advanced disclosure of the December figures because they were not ready. But he spoke of "good reasons to remain confident of growth prospects" in the euro zone despite oil prices being higher for longer than expected.

He warned that inflation, on the HICP measure, would stay above the bank's target ceiling of 2 per cent "for some time" to come" and said the euro's exchange rate was "a cause for concern" and was out of line with economic fundamentals.

He defended ECB intervention, stressing the aim had been to "break a prevailing philosophy or thinking in the markets" that the euro could only fall.

The euro slid below the $0.84 level yesterday as the absence of ECB intervention during the US Thanksgiving holiday afforded traders an easy target. The currency closed at $0.8389 compared with $0.8424 a day earlier.