monetary policy. this story has all the hallmarks of a charles dickens novel. depending on who you follow on twitter, for central banks it is the best of times and the worst of times ; it is an age of wisdom and an age of foolishness ; it is an epoch of belief and an epoch of incredulity. a happy ending to this story is by no means assured. these views may be polarised, perhaps even caricatured. but they matter. trust is the lifeblood of all things monetary and financial, including central banks. and incredulity is kryptonite for central banking supermen ( and the odd superwoman ), rendering ineffective their policies and unaccountable their actions. building trust and legitimacy is among the most pressing issues facing central banks today. tonight, i want to explore one avenue for doing so – rethinking how and with whom central banks engage. there has been a revolution in central bank communications over recent years, with much wider and deeper engagement with society. that has been essential in building central bank trust and credibility during good times and protecting central bank legitimacy and independence during bad. but two recent developments mean that central banks ’ engagement strategies may need to be widened and deepened. first, the global financial crisis has dealt a trust - busting blow to many institutions, including the title of the elvis song is, of course, a little less conversation, a little more action ( please ). elvis was not a central banker. mandelbrot and hudson ( 2004 ). for example, sentance ( 2015 ) and el - erian ( 2015 ). see also carney ( 2016 ). in a recent cfm - cepr survey of europe - based macroeconomists, only 45 % disagreed with the statement that “ central bank independence in the eurozone and the uk will decline over the next 48 months ” ( den haan et al, 2017 ). see house bill 3189 ( 2015 ). see warsh ( 2014 ) and blinder et al ( 2017 ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches central banks. second, the way trust is built has been fundamentally reconfigured. where once trust was anonymised, institutionalised and centralised, today it is increasingly personalised, socialised and distributed. facing these new constraints, the challenge for central banks is to rebuild trust among a wider set of

yakiv smolii : national bank of ukraine press briefing – monetary policy statement speech by mr yakiv smolii, governor of the national bank of ukraine, at a press briefing on monetary policy, kyiv, 14 march 2019. * * * dear colleagues, please be informed that the nbu board has decided to maintain its key policy rate at 18 % per annum. we believe that the tight monetary conditions continue to be an important prerequisite for gradually reducing inflation to the 5 % target in 2020. what inflation developments followed the last key policy rate decision? inflation continued to decelerate in the early months of 2019, effectively staying on the trajectory the nbu predicted in its january 2019 inflation report. by the end of february, inflation had declined to 8. 8 % yoy, with core inflation down to 7. 8 % yoy, indicating that the underlying inflationary pressure is easing off as anticipated. the nbu ’ s tight monetary policy contributed to the lower inflation, including by being one of the reasons for the strengthening of the hryvnia. other factors that made the hryvnia stronger : favorable global prices for ukrainian exports, in particular, agricultural and metals exports, and stable exports earnings the approaching deadline for annual tax payments to the state budget, which encouraged businesses to sell foreign currency more actively weak growth in imports of goods, and low volumes of repatriated foreign currency dividends net sales of foreign currency by households. the excess of fx supply over demand in the interbank market enabled the nbu to buy foreign currency to replenish international reserves without throwing the exchange rate off the course determined by market forces. the nbu has made usd 625 million in net fx purchases since the year started. favorable fx market conditions were another factor that helped keep international reserves above usd 20 billion despite sizable public debt repayments. the stronger hryvnia affected the prices of imported goods and goods that have a substantial import content. in addition, the consistency of the monetary policy, which aims to tackle inflation, and the fx market conditions contributed to the gradual improvement of inflation expectations. this raises interest rates in real terms and thus ensures tight monetary conditions necessary to reduce inflation. what will be the future trajectory of inflation? in 2019, in line with the january forecast, inflation will decelerate to 6. 3 %, and return to its target range of 5 % ± 1 pp early next year. this forecast still holds, despite new factors emerging since the n