FRANKFURT, Nov 14 (Reuters) - European Central Bank Governing Council member Athanasios Orphanides said on Friday that further interest rate cuts from the bank should not be considered unlikely.
"As president Trichet has said, we cannot rule it out and indeed I do not think that a further easing of monetary policy under the circumstances should be considered unlikely," Orphanides said in an interview with Reuters television.
He added that ECB staff forecasts to be published at the start of December would be far more pessimistic on euro zone growth than the previous set, but that the outlook for inflation had improved.
"Today's data indeed reflect what we already knew in the last few months, a deterioration in the real economy. I expect that the forecasts we will see by Eurosystem staff at the beginning of next month... will be much more pessimistic than the previous forecasts," Orphanides said.
(Reporting by Krista Hughes, writing by Marc Jones)