MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced the launch of its program to purchase securities worth 750 billion euro to maintain financial stability amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, the organization said on its website.

"The Governing Council decided <…> to launch a new temporary asset purchase programme of private and public sector securities to counter the serious risks to the monetary policy transmission mechanism and the outlook for the euro area posed by the outbreak and escalating diffusion of the coronavirus, COVID-19," ECB said in a statement.

The new Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) will have an overall envelope of €750 billion. It will be conducted until the end of 2020 and "will include all the asset categories eligible under the existing asset purchase programme (APP)."

The ECB will conclude the program once it judges that the coronavirus Covid-19 crisis phase is over, but "in any case not before the end of the year."

The coronavirus outbreak, which began in late 2019 in China, has spread to over 130 countries and the WHO recognized it as a global pandemic. According to latest reports, more than 200,000 people contracted the disease worldwide, and 8,000 of them died. Russia has registered 147 infection cases so far.