good cooperation of the experts, their commitment and dedication to the project, at today ’ s first meeting, the steering committee adopted the benchmarks in all planned areas, whereby, i am pleased to say that the first stage of the project has been successfully completed. in the forthcoming period, the eurosystem experts should assess the legal framework and the nbrm ’ s practice in these areas and identify “ the gaps ” against the agreed benchmarks, to which the nbrm is fully committed and ready for open collaboration. the recommendations and directions that will be presented in the form of the report at the third and final phase, will be the basis for designing the future strategy of the nbrm for strengthening its institutional capacity ladies and gentlemen, the implementation of the european standards and best practices by the nbrm is of utmost importance, as it will not only enable the process of accession of the nbrm to the european system of central banks, but it will also contribute to the providing of bis central bankers ’ speeches price stability and stability and efficiency of the financial system in the country, in general, which is a precondition for eu membership. rest assured that the management and the employees of the nbrm will address this challenge in a professional manner and will use this project to further strengthen the capacity and credibility of our institution. finally, let me wish all the participants in the project a successful cooperation in their future work, believing that the cooperation with the ecb and the national central banks of the escb will further deepen in the future. i would once again like to thank the eu delegation for enabling the implementation of this project with the hope for further support in providing subsequent project for the implementation of the recommendations, and thank the other guests for their presence. bis central bankers ’ speeches

##zation could push long - term rates to zero, there is no guarantee that will provide enough stimulus, given the prevailing deflation. the real bond rate could still be too high. this proxy role for money could, in principle, cover other channels besides long - term government and private interest rates and asset prices – such as liquidity and credit effects – that might be activated by increases in the money supply. in this case, even additional conventional operations – open market operations in treasury bills – might stimulate aggregate demand, even if they could not further lower the short - term nominal interest rate. however, that affect does not seem very plausible. for example, would the increased liquidity of holding money versus short - term bills stimulate aggregate demand? if economic agents wanted the additional liquidity they could have acquired it with no holding cost by selling zero - interest - rate bills and acquiring cash. why, when the central bank initiates this change, would it affect spending, if no interest rates or asset prices were affected? bernanke and gertler have emphasized a credit channel as part of the transmission mechanism. but this channel – though amplifying the effect of monetary policy – seems itself to require a change in interest rates. for example, a decline in interest rates would, according to bernanke and gertler, reduce existing committed cash flows of borrowers and therefore make the borrower more creditworthy. this, in turn, could result in lenders offering additional credit. however, if interest rates do not decline this channel is not activated. finally, the proxy role for money could include the effect of monetization on expectations. this channel depends on the ability of policymakers to alter expectations about the course and effects of future policy. that is, the policy effect does not derive from a higher money supply today but from a perceived commitment to a higher money stock in the future. expectation effects could alter current long - term real interest rates in two ways. first, convincing the public that monetary policy will remain stimulative longer will lower expected future nominal short - term interest rates and therefore longer - term nominal interest rates. second, convincing the public that monetary policy will achieve a higher inflation rate in the future, at least on average, could lower bernanke and gertler ( 1995 ). clouse et al. ( 2000 ). i am assuming a standard expectations theory of the term structure of interest rates and constant risk premiums. long - term interest rates are,