the dollar. the amount outstanding of funds in the call money market has remained generally stable since the middle of june. to date, this has not led to any difficulty in funds settlement, but close attention should be paid to future market developments. with regard to corporate finance, private banks have basically retained their cautious lending attitude. however, constraint that had been caused by severe fund - raising conditions and insufficient capital base has eased considerably. under these circumstances, major banks have gradually become more active than before in extending loans, while carefully evaluating the credit risks involved. however, credit demand for economic activities such as business fixed investment remains weak. in addition, some firms have been trying to reduce debts using their on hand liquidity. as a result, credit demand in the private sector has continued to be weak, and thus private banks ’ lending has remained sluggish. meanwhile, issuance of corporate bonds and cp has recently been steady. the year - to - year growth rate of money stock ( m2 + cds ) has declined to around 3. 5 percent mainly due to the weakness in credit demand in the private sector. in this financial environment, credit conditions have eased somewhat. the following continue to warrant careful monitoring : how actively investors will take risks ; how far private banks will ease their lending stance ; and how these changes will affect economic activities.

i have no doubts that the success of european integration in the past will continue into the future. as mentioned before, the oesterreichische nationalbank ( oenb ) very closely tracks and analyzes the process of european integration of central and eastern european countries. to keep the interested public informed about economic topics pertaining to this region, we hosted the “ east - west conference ” year after year and published a “ focus on transition ” twice a year. since the process of european integration has permanently closed the divide that used to run across europeand since the new central and eastern european eu member states have successfully completed most transition steps - and therefore can no longer be labelled transition economies - we had good reasons to update the names of two of our most important products. our conference and our publication are complimentary products. therefore we decided to choose a common name. this year ’ s conference is the first to take place under the new name : “ conference on european economic integration ( ceei ) ”, a name which reflects the growing - together of europe. in parallel, we relaunched the “ focus on transition ” as ” focus on european economic integration ”. the first issue was published recently. hand in hand with the renaming we also have renewed the structure and content of our products, an effort that was greatly aided by the results of a reader survey conducted this year. we will continue to investigate economic topics relevant to the new central and eastern european eu countries, such as the adoption of the euro. furthermore, we used the opportunity to extend our geographical focus to the region of south east europe. this year ’ s “ conference on european economic integration ” entitled “ south eastern european challenges and prospects ” is dedicated especially to this part of europe ; which comprises, as we understand it, the countries albania, bosnia and herzegovina, bulgaria, croatia, macedonia, romania, serbia and montenegro. since the eight central and eastern european countries joined the eu, the eu integration process has clearly shifted south east. apart from romania, bulgaria and croatia, which are next candidates for accession, all other south eastern european countries now have an accession perspective, as recently stated by the european commission. the stability pact for south eastern europe has been assisting the difficult catching - up process of this region. we will hear more on this pact later today. for completeness, let me shortly mention the case of turkey. last month, the european commission recommended to start accession negotiations with turkey. based on the report and recommendation from the european commission,