HIGHLIGHTS-Trichet comments after ECB cuts rates to 1.5 pct

FRANKFURT, March 5 (Reuters) - The following are comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on Thursday after the bank cut interest rates to an all-time low of 1.5 percent.

COULD RATES GO DOWN MORE?

"We did not decide ex ante that we were at the lowest level. If justified by facts, figures...if some of the risk that I am mentioning are materialising, I don't exclude that the policy rate could be changed and could go down."

"We did not decide to exclude that ex-ante -- that's absolutely clear."

"With the deposit rate at the present level, which is 0.5 percent, are already at very, very low rates."

HAVE RATES BOTTOMED?

"We did not decide ex ante that this was the lowest point that we could attain. Further decisions will depend on facts, figures, judgement on the basis of Governing Council discussions."

ZERO RATE POLICY

"On why we think that zero interest rates has a lot of inconvenience, I will not elaborate on that. It is clearly an assessment that we are making."

STAFF GROWTH PROJECTIONS

"Looking ahead, the governing council expects that both global and domestic demand will decline in 2009 and thereafter recover gradually. This assessment is also reflected in the March macroeconomic 2009 staff projections for the euro area which place annual real GDP growth in a range of -3.2 pct to -2.2 pct in 2009 and between -0.7 pct and +0.7 in 2010.

"These ranges represent the downward revision of the December 2008 staff projection."

STAFF INFLATION PROJECTIONS

"For 2010 ECB staff project HICP inflation at between 0.6 percent and 1.4 pct. This range also represents a substantial downward revision compared with December '08 euro system staff macro economic projections, mainly reflecting the change in the economic growth outlook. Available forecasts from international organisations have also been revised downwards and broadly confirm an outlook of moderate inflation rates in 2010."