SINTRA, Portugal (Reuters) - The European Central Bank will take a "patient" and "gradual" approach to raising interest rates as inflation in the euro zone recovers, its president said on Tuesday, adding he was happy with current market expectations.
"We will remain patient in determining the timing of the first rate rise and will take a gradual approach to adjusting policy thereafter," Mario Draghi told an ECB conference in the Portuguese town of Sintra.
"The path of very short-term interest rates that is implicit in the term structure of today's money market interest rates broadly reflects these principles," he added.
Money markets currently price in the first hike to the ECB's deposit rate in September 2019.
(Reporting By Francesco Canepa and Balazs Koranyi)
