Mario Draghi primed investors for an initial bond-buying salvoon Monday as he signaled European Central Bank (ECB) officials areconvinced they will succeed in choking off the threat ofdeflation.

Six years after the U.S. Federal Reserve began quantitativeeasing (QE), the ECB's Governing Council committed to its firstasset purchases next week in a program amounting to 60 billioneuros (US$66 billion) a month. The ECB president also unveiledforecasts showing higher economic growth with an inflation outlookthat puts officials on track to reach a goal of just below 2percent.

“Our monetary policy decisions have worked, and it is with acertain degree of satisfaction that the Governing Council hasacknowledged this,” he said at a press conference in the Cypriotcapital of Nicosia on Thursday. “We see objectives are graduallybeing obtained.”