FRANKFURT - EUROPEAN Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said on Friday it was too soon to declare the financial crisis over and stressed that the ECB's exceptional measures should remain in place.

Speaking a day after the ECB left its key interest rate unchanged at a historic low of 1.0 per cent, Mr Trichet addressed the issue of 'exit strategies,' or when the central bank would begin to unwind steps taken over the past two years.

It was 'too soon to call the crisis over,' he told analysts gathered in Frankfurt, while also making clear that at some point 'financial institutions ultimately need to stand on their own two feet.'

The ECB has slashed interest rates, loaned unlimited amounts of cash to banks for up to one year and launched a programme to buy low-risk corporate bonds in a bid to unblock a key financial market.

Markets now want to know when the bank will begin to undo its exceptional measures, but Mr Trichet emphasised that 'we will unwind these measures when the situation returns to normal and the rationale for the measures fades away.'

The strategy 'will need to be invoked at the precise time in which the traditional link between broad money and our provision of liquidity to the banking system will re-establish itself,' Mr Trichet said.

'We will unwind these measures when the situation returns to normal and the rationale for the measures fades away.' The programme of what the ECB prefers to call 'enhanced credit support' has helped to buffer the eurozone from global financial turmoil, but the 16-nation economy nonetheless fell into recession for the first time since its creation in 1999.

After contracting by a modest 0.1 pe rcent in the second quarter of this year however, the zone appears set to post growth in the following three months.

The ECB governing council said on Thursday there was an 'expectation that the significant contraction in economic activity has come to an end.' -- AFP