Since July 2007 the ECB has estimated daily yield curves reflecting the implied market remuneration rates of euro area central government bonds for residual maturities ranging from 3 months to 30 years. These curves help to gauge market expectations regarding economic and financial activity, as well as being used for monetary policy purposes. The curves are presented in a very user-friendly way, using the latest web technologies. 4  4. The available monthly statistics on outstanding amounts of Short-Term European Paper have been supplemented with daily statistics on yields. This has enabled the ECB to ensure transparency while respecting the confidentiality of individual price or yield data. 5. The external statistics of the ECB now provide separate data for Brazil, Russia, India, mainland China and Hong Kong as counterparts. Moreover, they also show the quarterly changes in the overall external position of the euro area, broken down into transactions, exchange rate changes, asset price changes and other changes. 5  1  See http://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/money/interest/interest/html/interest_rates_2007-12.en.html. 2  An updated overview of all available ECB statistics has recently been http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/ecbstatisticsqualityframework200804en.pdf. 3  See “The introduction of quarterly sectoral accounts statistics for the euro area” in the November 2007 issue of the ECB’s Monthly Bulletin; “Recent developments in the household and corporate sectors: information from new quarterly euro area sector accounts” in the June 2007 issue of the ECB’s Monthly Bulletin; and “New estimates on holdings by sector for euro area M3” in the December 2007 issue of the ECB’s Monthly Bulletin. 4  See http://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/money/yc/html/index.en.html#data.

This is mirrored by the fruitful cooperation between the statistical departments of national central banks (NCBs) and national statistical institutes (NSIs), both at the national and at the European level, for instance in the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB). For this reason, I am particularly pleased that Commissioner Almunia has kindly accepted our invitation to give the keynote speech at this conference and that the programme includes a session organised jointly by Eurostat and the ECB’s Directorate-General Statistics and chaired by Mr Carré, the Director-General of Eurostat. I would like briefly to consider three issues: 1.  recent enhancements to euro area statistics from the ECB’s perspective as a policymaker;  2.  the importance of the appropriate communication of statistics; and  3.  the strategy for the further development of euro area statistics. Recent enhancements to euro area statistics from the ECB’s perspective as a policy maker First of all, I would like to reiterate that reliable and timely euro area economic, monetary and financial statistics are of paramount importance for the ECB’s decision-making. This applies not only to the single monetary policy, but also to the other ESCB tasks, including those in the areas of financial stability and payment systems. Statistics are themselves one of the main deliverables of the ECB, providing market participants, analysts, academics, the media and the general public with the aggregate financial data they need.