benoit cœure : the local impact of the european central bank ’ s monetary policy speech by mr benoit cœure, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at les champs du possible, chateaudun, 4 october 2018. * * * it is a great pleasure to be here in chateaudun and have the opportunity to exchange views with you. the ecb governing council, which sets monetary policy for the euro area, benefits from such dialogue in two very important ways. 1 the first is that it enriches our understanding of the state and the drivers of the economy. earlier today, i had the opportunity to meet with local high school students. i also visited a company that exports its products to europe and the wider world. in a currency union with 19 countries, policymakers are always at risk of focusing too much on the big picture and overlooking local reality. the second benefit is that such visits to local communities enable us to explain our actions. we are accountable to the 340 million people living in the euro area, so we have a responsibility to clarify what we do and why we think our actions are appropriate. so that is what i would like to do in the next 15 minutes. in particular, i would like to talk about the role of the ecb ’ s monetary policy in the current economic expansion and describe how it has helped to foster employment and growth in the euro area as a whole, and also here in eure - etloir. and, perhaps even more importantly, i will also set out what monetary policy cannot do, and how sustainable growth crucially depends on growth and job policies decided at regional, national and european level. the ecb ’ s response to financial fragmentation let me start with an overview of the situation in the euro area. as you can see on my first slide, the euro area economy has now enjoyed five years of uninterrupted growth. gross domestic product – the blue line – is well above the levels we observed before the great financial crisis. the labour market has also improved notably in recent years. employment – the yellow line – has risen by 9. 2 million since mid - 2013. the unemployment rate fell to 8. 1 % in august 2018, its lowest level in ten years. the participation rate of people aged between 15 and 74 now stands at 64 %, 1. 5 percentage point higher than ten years ago. by comparison, in the united states the participation ratio of those aged 16 and over decreased from 66

zhou xiaochuan : people ’ s bank of china governor ’ s new year message new year message by mr zhou xiaochuan, governor of the people ’ s bank of china, 7 january 2015. * * * the last day of 2014 is about to leave us and we will soon see the first light of 2015. at this juncture, i would like to convey, on behalf of the pbc cpc committee, new year ’ s greetings to all the staff members of the pbc system and sincere gratitude to those who are still on their duty positions on the new year holiday and their family members. in 2014, we continued our endeavor on the road of reform and innovation. in the complex and changing international environment and facing the arduous domestic task of reform, development and stability, under the leadership of the cpc central committee and the state council, the pbc continued the approach of seeking progress while maintaining stability, reform and innovation and achieved remarkable results in the various fields of central bank functions. we continued to implement a sound monetary policy, maintained policy continuity and stability, made innovations in the approach of macro - economic management, and conducted pre - emptive adjustment and fine - tuning. as a result, the growth of money, credit and all - system financing aggregate remained reasonable and the credit structure continued to improve, contributing to the stable and sound development of the economy. breakthroughs were made in the key financial reforms including market - based interest rate reform, exchange rate regime reform, and deposit insurance scheme, and policy financial institutions made new progress in their reforms. we have seen faster pace in the innovation of financial markets and a stronger role of financial sector in servicing the real sector. the cross - border use of rmb has been expanding. the reform of foreign exchange administration has been deepening. the management of financial risks has been effective. the quality and management of financial services have improved. we have actively participated a wide range of international and regional financial cooperation. the party ’ s mass line education and practice endeavor has produced results. the pbc has further improved its party building, style of work and internal management. the year 2015 is a crucial year for the deepening of reform as it is the first year of comprehensively promoting rule of law and the concluding year of the 12th five - year plan. the pbc system will earnestly implement the decisions adopted at the 18th cpc national congress, the third and fourth plenums of the 18th cpc central committee, and the central economic