PARIS - The European Central Bank left its main interest rate steady Thursday after the recent release of a string of more positive economic data.

Having lowered its main refinancing rate to 1 percent, from 4.25 percent in October, as well as cut its other main interest rates, the bank appears to have adopted a wait-and-see approach to additional stimulus.

Like other financial authorities, the European Central Bank has announced unconventional steps to try to lift bank lending and economic activity. In early June, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president, said that the bank would execute a 60 billion euro ($85 billion) program of buying covered bonds-securities created from either mortgage loans or public sector loans from across the euro area.

Last week, the bank said that it would extend one-year loans of more than 442 billion euros to banks at an interest rate of 1 percent as it seeks to unfreeze lending in the 16 countries that use the euro. The allotment was the largest ever by the European monetary authorities and the first time the bank has offered refinancing loans for a 12-month period.

Most analysts expect major new initiatives from the central bank through the summer, at least, as it gauges the effect of its recent action and assesses whether the much discussed "green shoots" in recent data releases will wither or take root.

"With the inflation rate set to remain dampened for the foreseeable future and the credit downturn in full swing, we see a strong case for a steady refi rate throughout 2010," said Marco Valli, an economist at UniCredit Research in Milan.

The European statistics agency, Eurostat, said this week that prices in the euro zone fell 0.1 percent in June from a year earlier, the first such decline since the euro was created in 1999. Prices in May were unchanged from a year earlier.

No details were released with the preliminary data, but analysts said the decline was probably based on continued weakness in food and energy prices. In July, a large base effect from energy prices is likely to push the inflation rate down further, according to analysts.

Eurostat said Thursday that the industrial producer price index - a broad gauge of price pressure within industry - fell 0.2 percent in the euro zone in May from the previous month, and dropped 0.4 percent across the European Union as a whole.

Still, the central bank has said that it is not overly concerned about deflation and that prices should turn positive by the end of the year. The latest bank projections released last month forecast inflation at 0.1 percent to 0.5 percent in 2009 and 0.6 percent to 1.4 percent next year.

In terms of other data, there have been some positive signs this week. A release on Wednesday showed that, adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings and excluding car sales, German retail sales increased 0.4 percent in May from a month earlier, after a 0.5 percent increase in April.

And closely watched manufacturing surveys for the euro zone and for Britain raised hopes that economic growth may emerge this year.

The purchasing managers index - a gauge of business activity - for the euro zone's manufacturing sector rose for the fourth month, running to 42.6 points in June, from 40.7 in May.

A release Thursday by Eurostat showed that recovery has yet to filter through to the labor market. For May, the unemployment rate in the zone rose to 9.5 percent - the highest in a decade - from 9.3 percent in April, the agency said

Analysts said unemployment would probably continue to rise for the rest of this year and next, with the economy still in recession and any near-term recovery likely to be muted.

Major global organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development still expect the euro area to have a more sluggish rebound next year than the United States or Japan.

That kind of pessimism is adding to pressure on the central bank to keep its rates low for a long period, or even cut them more from their ultra-low level.

Patrick Devedjian, the French minister in charge of that country's economic recovery, last week criticized the bank's crisis management and urged it to further lower interest rates.

"I think they were obsessed with inflation, and they maintained high interest rates at a time where economic activity needed to be supported," Mr. Devedjian said in an interview. "I believe the interest rate must still be lowered."

The bank should also be careful in the way it manages its program of asset purchases, he said, suggesting that some bonds might not be creditworthy enough to be used in its strategies.

"There are bonds from certain countries, which I won't name, that aren't necessarily reliable," Mr. Devedjian said.

The covered bond program starts this month and will run until the end of June 2010; it will mostly focus on bonds with a minimum AA rating and maturities of 3 to 10 years. The purchases will be "sterilized" by offsetting monetary operations to minimize their effects on the money supply.

The Swedish central bank cut its benchmark interest rate Thursday by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.25 percent, saying the economic downturn appeared to be deeper than previously forecast.

The bank said the rate was "expected to remain at this low level over the coming year" and added there were "several signs that economic activity will improve." Most economists had expected the bank to leave borrowing costs steady.

The central bank also announced it would offer 100 billion kronor ($13.1 billion) in one-year loans to banks at 0.15 percentage point above the benchmark rate.