above all, one might question if further debt relief rightly deserves such a prominent place on the international development agenda as opposed to resetting incentives in accordance with recent historical experience. the imf itself seems to be quite sceptical about this. net flows, not debt relief, matter. but that, of course, is a political decision about which central banks have no a priori view as long as no monetary financing is involved. conclusion ladies and gentlemen this morning my colleague, dr jurgen stark, ended his remarks by recognising the excellent job the imf has so far performed. after a day of intense debate about the future role of the imf in a changing world, there is the danger that this key message will get buried somewhere under the weight of discussions on distinct aspects of the fund ’ s work. and for the rare instances where some criticism of the fund was articulated today, it was certainly in the spirit of the famous german poet, heinrich heine, who once remarked that only “ he profits from praise, who values criticism ”. so let me clearly reiterate that the imf in our view is an indispensable engine to improve the functioning and stability of the international monetary system. i have very much enjoyed listening and talking to you. and i would like to thank all of you. i wish to particularly extend my thanks to the managing director of the imf, rodrigo de rato, and to all the panellists and moderators. special thanks go to our conference staff and to the bundesbank ’ s international monetary affairs division.

this, at least, is what we can gather from a comparison with surveybased inflation expectations, which at last report fell only a very little or not at all and are running much closer to the definition of price stability. however, the risk of de - anchoring naturally increases, the longer economic agents observe an inflation rate which they perceive as being sustainably below the definition of price stability. the new forecast picture therefore certainly did present quite a monetary policy challenge and exposed a need for action to be taken. on this topic, there was agreement within the governing council of the ecb. but taken as a whole, i think the decisions went too far, and the comprehensive package of measures didn't win me over. my reservations concerning government bond purchases in the euro area are well known. similarly, the latest downturn in the outlook for prices and growth still leaves me unconvinced of the alleged need to use this instrument, one that i regard purely as an emergency instrument. for this will ultimately lead to a dangerous commingling of monetary and fiscal policy. even after taking note of the latest forecast revisions, i still see a very remote risk of a deflationary spiral. it is a fact, however, that the governing council of the ecb is striving for an inflation rate of below, but close to, 2 % in the medium term in order to fulfil its mandate of price stability. one reason why the central banks of the major currency areas generally aim for an inflation rate of just under 2 % is because slightly positive rates of price increase provide a certain safety margin to the lower bound on interest rates. as we now know, this bound is not exactly at zero, nor is it significantly below that level. if the inflation target is too low, a central bank's scope for stimulating the economy using conventional instruments can quickly be exhausted. naturally, the target ought not be too high, either, as we all know that inflation is costly. and not just when inflation rates hit the double digits. which is precisely the reason why many central banks across the world now have the mandate to safeguard price stability. maybe a comparison with a ship will help to illustrate the situation. a ship ought to have enough water below its keel at all times in order not to run aground. at the same time, too much water would prevent the ship from casting its anchor. it is important to emphasise that our target is a medium - run one. the medium run does