was bulging, markets concluded that interest rates would change ; if it was thin, they concluded that no change was likely. in the end, such ways of gauging what the central bank is up to are quite unreliable. markets might easily draw the wrong conclusions and this might lead to unwanted volatility and turbulence. that is one of the reasons why today, almost everyone agrees that central banks need to be transparent. it helps them to steer the expectations of markets and make their policies more effective. at the same time, it helps them be more accountable. both of these things have become even more important against the backdrop of our unconventional measures. so we need to communicate very carefully on our next steps. we must help markets get an idea of what the exit will look like. and we mustn ’ t confuse them with vague or ambiguous ideas. we have to strike a delicate balance. and in my view, we need to find this balance now. as of today, it is clear which sequence the exit will follow. bond purchases will come to an end, while interest rates will remain low, well past the horizon of net asset purchases. but we still need to decide on a timeframe. from my point of view, it is important that we really move towards the exit – step by step, but steadily and in a clear direction. conclusion ladies and gentlemen, i began by saying that the days of “ boring ” central banking are over. and i do hope that i have shown that to be true. what is safe to say, though, is that central banks have stepped into the limelight and become a focal point of public debate. and it is a controversial debate. some argue that the ecb handled the crisis well. others are much more critical. who is right? today i have argued that, given the low inflation, monetary policy needed to be expansive. admittedly, the appropriate degree of expansion and the necessary tools are moot points. in any case, we must bear in mind that some of the ecb ’ s more unconventional tools also have side effects. and these side effects will grow in magnitude the longer the tools are used. so, the future holds the final answer to our question of whether monetary policy was optimally calibrated. if we manage to put the unconventional tools back into the box when the time comes, we will be able to claim that the ecb successfully achieved its objective. and in my view, this time has come. we need to

every 6 to 7 anti - dumping cases were filed against chinese companies. by the end of 2003, a total of 540 anti - dumping cases had been filed against china ’ s products. third, competition in the service industry has intensified. one weakness of the chinese economy lies in the underdeveloped service industry. growth of china ’ s service industry failed to match that of the manufacturing sector. the service industry accounts for 65 percent of the world gdp. it averages 70 percent for developed countries and 50 percent for developing nations, but lingering around 30 percent for china. china ’ s major telecommunications companies have long been constrained narrow business scope, resulting in persistently weak competitiveness. in the retail market, foreign companies like wal - mart and carrefour, have obvious advantages in terms of capital, management, procurement and distribution. the gap is even larger with the developed countries with regard to financial services. the chinese financial institutions are plagued by poor asset quality, capital inadequacy and less diversified products. there exists a big gap between the chinese and foreign financial institutions in terms of business operation, management skills and staff quality. in the 2nd quarter of 2004, non - performing loans recorded by the state - owned commercial banks reached rmb1. 8898 trillion yuan, accounting for 19. 2 percent of their credit assets. for the time being, the fiercest competition between the domestic and foreign institutions is over the so - called “ high - end ” clients as 80 percent of the profits of the financial industry is generated from business with these high - end customers. meanwhile, competition over quality staff is also becoming ever intense. in a broader perspective, the chinese economy has been growing at a fast speed since the beginning of reform and opening up, but its competitiveness has unfortunately not recorded the same impressive improvement. the global competitiveness report published by the world economic forum in november 2003 ranks china ’ s growth competitiveness the 44th among 102 economies in the survey while its commercial competitiveness the 46th among 95 economies. and of the “ fortune 500 ”, only 14 companies are from china ( if those from hong kong, taiwan and macao are not included ). iii. deepening reform and opening wider to improve china ’ s corporate competitiveness in face of all these challenges, we did not blame other countries, but have resorted to more aggressive reform to improve our competitiveness. the 3rd plenary session of the 16th national congress of the communist party emphasized the strategic objective of improving socialist market economic