directly or indirectly. the oenb is responsible for implementing the eurosystem ’ s monetary policy operations in austria, and for providing emergency liquidity assistance to banks based in austria. as an expert organization, it provides a high degree of know - how, comprehensive analyses and high - quality data for the ecb and for the oenb ’ s partner organizations in austria. in addition, the oenb plays a direct role in safeguarding financial stability in its capacity as the national banking supervisor. the know - how of the ecb and of the national central banks of the eurosystem and their capacity to act are crucial for the smooth functioning of the money and financial system. this is even more true in crisis situations, such as we witness at present. the instruments of central banks are the more effective the better they are integrated in a comprehensive macroeconomic strategy, alongside fiscal policy measures. using those instruments to take concrete economic and monetary policy action presupposes the existence of strong institutions with a pronounced capacity to act, which the oenb has got. in times like these, the oenb ’ s capacity and know - how are of particular importance, and we are well aware that we have a big responsibility to meet. ladies and gentlemen, allow me to draw a simile to conclude : to excel in central banking, we need to have the courage to rush in like firefighters, and we need to be as vigilant as policemen. right now we are busy fighting a large fire that has spread across the world ; and i would say we have been doing a good job in getting the fire under control. at the same time i can assure you that we have seen to it that money and lending market operations continue to run smoothly, and that we promote the resumption of sustainable growth and preserve price stability. this brings me to the end of my introductory remarks. to conclude, i look forward to having a day and a half with you to discuss these critical and timely issues of economic policy from a multitude of perspectives. i hope you will find our economics conference a useful and an insightful event.

high degree of independence from political influence, which supports them in reaching the goal of maintaining price stability. their main policy instrument is the key interest rate or, in other words, the rate at which credit institutions may borrow from them. in addition, central banks are responsible for safeguarding the stability of the financial system. the key channel for meeting this responsibility is the provision of liquidity to the banking sector. central banks stand ready to use both types of instruments in times of crisis. in response to the current crisis, the traditional monetary policy instruments have, indeed, been used widely. since last october, the ecb has lowered its key interest rate by a total of 325 basis points. at the same time, the eurosystem has also widely used its framework of liquidity - providing instruments. moreover, this framework has been expanded to include instruments that would not be typically used under normal circumstances, such as the provision of liquidity with a maturity of up to one year, or the provision of liquidity in foreign currency ( such as u. s. dollar and swiss franc ) in the form of swaps with the federal reserve system and other central banks. both measures – interest rate policy measures and liquidity - providing measures – have helped ease tensions in the interbank lending market and have been instrumental in meeting the challenge of safeguarding the stability of the financial system. at the same time, i would like to stress that both types of measures are compatible with the ecb ’ s price stability objective, as both inflationary pressures and inflation risks have decreased substantially in the course of the crisis. any concerns that the current monetary policy stance may push up inflation in the time ahead are, therefore, unfounded. neither short - term inflation expectations nor forecasts of the degree of capacity utilization ( output gaps ) in the real economy, and neither credit growth figures nor money supply measures are, at present, signaling inflation risks. it goes without saying that we are closely monitoring developments to be able to take action fast, if need be. in the near term, we see some signs that price levels might go down in individual euro area countries, which we interpret as an unwinding of increases seen last year in an environment of soaring energy prices. the producer price index for the euro area, in fact, dropped by 3. 1 % from march 2008 to march 2009. let me stress, however, that over the medium term i see neither the risk of deflation, nor the risk of inflation.