FRANKFURT - The European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday decided to leave key interest rates for the euro area unchanged and to launch a review of its monetary policy strategy.

The ECB Governing Council said in a statement that the eurozone base interest rate will remain at 0.00 percent, with the marginal lending rate and deposit rate remaining at 0.25 percent and minus 0.50 percent, respectively.

The ECB said it expects the key interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2 percent within its projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics.

It also confirmed that the net purchases under its asset purchase program will continue at a monthly pace of 20 billion euros ($22.18 billion).