investment position. the ecb intends to launch these statistics within the next 12 months, and it is hoped that they may give some important new insights into the external economic relations of the euro area. also over the next year, the frequency of the statistics on the international investment position will be increased from annual to quarterly. these statistics provide an overall picture of the euro area ’ s claims on and liabilities to the rest of the world. in the near future, the monetary presentation of the balance of payments will also be published monthly instead of quarterly, while work is already under way to update the trade weights of the ecb ’ s effective exchange rate statistics. in that way, the analysis of the euro area ’ s competitiveness remains up to date. finally, the investment funds statistics will be enhanced by separating the changes in the outstanding amounts into two : the changes due to transactions on the one hand, and those due to valuation and other changes on the other. all these statistics will become available on a much enhanced, easily accessible statistics section of the ecb ’ s website. also, a statistical information service has been set up to answer specific queries from both external and internal users. the priorities for ecb statistics in the medium term are very well reflected in the themes of this conference : 1. a full system of euro area quarterly accounts for institutional sectors, integrating both financial and non - financial accounts, would provide an integrated statistical basis for the ecb ’ s monetary and economic analysis. 2. more comprehensive statistics for the monitoring and analysis of financial stability, with explicit links to the statistics for monetary policy purposes, would make it possible to deliver a more thorough analysis of interactions between these policy goals. 3. further development of external statistics ( e. g. on the international role of the euro or concerning the details of the international investment position ) would enable better monitoring of the continually increasing, global economic intertwining. 4. better interplay between business accountants and statisticians would enable cross - fertilisation of the considerable expertise in these adjacent fields. this has an enormous potential for decreasing the administrative burden for businesses, while at the same time improving the quality of statistics. 5. an increasing focus on the various quality dimensions of european statistics as reflected, for instance, in the ecb ’ s intention to regularly publish quantitative output quality indicators ( on revisions, consistency, etc. ) and more comprehensive quality reports on its statistics. at the same time, the ecb attaches great

mbs ) ; we are currently purchasing $ 40 billion per month in agency mbs and $ 45 billion per month in treasuries. the second tool is “ forward guidance ” about the committee ’ s plans for setting the federal funds rate target over the medium term. within our overall policy framework, we think of these two tools as having somewhat different roles. we are using asset purchases and the resulting expansion of the federal reserve ’ s balance sheet primarily to increase the near - term momentum of the economy, with the specific goal of achieving a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market in a context of price stability. we have made some progress toward this goal, and, with inflation subdued, we intend to continue our purchases until a substantial improvement in the labor market outlook has been realized. in addition, even after purchases end, the federal reserve will be holding its stock of treasury and agency securities off the market and reinvesting the proceeds from maturing securities, which will continue to put downward pressure on longer - term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative. we are relying on near - zero short - term interest rates, together with our forward guidance that rates will continue to be exceptionally low – our second tool – to help maintain a high degree of monetary accommodation for an extended period after asset purchases end, even as the economic recovery strengthens and unemployment declines toward more - normal levels. in appropriate combination, these two tools can provide the high level of policy accommodation needed to promote a stronger economic recovery with price stability. these projections reflect fomc participants ’ assessments based on their individual judgments regarding appropriate monetary policy. bis central bankers ’ speeches in the interest of transparency, committee participants agreed in june that it would be helpful to lay out more details about our thinking regarding the asset purchase program – specifically, to provide additional information on our assessment of progress to date, as well as of the likely trajectory of the program if the economy evolves as projected. this agreement to provide additional information did not reflect a change in policy. the committee ’ s decisions regarding the asset purchase program ( and the overall stance of monetary policy ) depend on our assessment of the economic outlook and of the cumulative progress toward our objectives. of course, economic forecasts must be revised when new information arrives and are thus necessarily provisional. as i noted, the economic outcomes that committee participants saw as most likely in their june projections involved continuing gains in labor markets, supported by moderate