The ongoing liberalisation process meant that it was no longer important to divide the balance of payments statistics into koruna and foreign currency transactions. This classification was replaced by a standard breakdown into transactions between residents and non-residents. Numerous statistics linked with regulation were gradually abolished as individual areas of economic activity were liberalised. These examples merely illustrate how the central bank’s entire statistical system was rebuilt from scratch. Let me now move on to the more recent past. In 1999 we began to co-operate closely with European institutions. The main topics included monetary and banking statistics, balance of payments statistics and more recently also financial accounts, government financial statistics and general economic statistics. The development of statistics was influenced by a need to standardise each area to ensure compatibility between the EU Member States and the candidate countries. Hand in hand with these contacts, we began to work much more closely with the Czech Statistical Office. In the area of statistics the Czech Statistical Office is the natural and closest partner of the Czech National Bank, since these two institutions are the major producers of statistical information in the Czech Republic. The Czech Statistical Office conducts a far wider range of statistical surveys, providing aggregate information on the national economy, territory, climate, environment, population, elections and other areas of life and activity of our country. The Czech National Bank is above all a user of economic  BIS Review 49/2004  1  statistics and collaborates most closely in this area.

Zdeněk Tůma: The importance of statistics - a central banker’s view Introductory speech by Mr Zdeněk Tůma, Governor of the Czech National Bank, at the conference “Statistics - investment in the future”, Prague, 6 September 2004. *  *  *  Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me join my distinguished colleague, Head of the Czech Statistical Office, Mr Fischer and welcome you to this conference at the Czech National Bank’s Congress Centre. One reason the Czech National Bank is co-organising this event is our own involvement in the statistical field and consequently a close co-operation with the Czech Statistical Office. Statistics is somewhat overlooked by the general public who does not perceive it as an area of primary significance, unlike matters such as privatisation, corruption, bankruptcies, problems of the banking sector, functioning of the courts, law enforcement and the other major transformation issues. The less statistics is the subject of attention-grabbing articles and reports in the media, the more systematic work it requires. Work that is often very demanding, particularly as regards to data consistency and detailed profiles. Indeed, it is the level of detail which is subject to sensitive evaluation. That is why, one of the most difficult tasks in statistics is to strike a balance between the amount of information required and the burden laid on respondents. Statistical information is used not only for passive monitoring of past developments and their disclosure in statistical publications, but also as a basis for real-life decision-making by economic agents.