and presentation of data on the money supply ( monetary aggregates ), banks'interest rates on approved credits and accepted deposits, and many other data on the banking sector ; • balance of payments statistics that includes processing and compiling data on the developments in the balance of payments in the republic of macedonia ; and • external debt statistics that includes processing and presentation of data on the foreign debt of the country. the national bank has developed all these major sets of macroeconomic statistics in line with the international recommendations and standards. the harmonization of the method of developing such statistics with the international recommendations and standards has permanently been subject to verification by international institutions and organizations, primarily by the international monetary fund, as an institution that creates the methodological standards and recommendations in the area of central banking statistics. i would like to take this opportunity to mention the report of the so - called imf rosc ( report of the observance on standards and codes ) mission, where the assessments of the central bank statistics are particularly positive, i. e. the development of the nbrm monetary and balance of payments statistics is largely harmonized with the international recommendations and standards. we are particularly focused on the given comments and recommendations for the purposes of further improvement and development of the statistics. we, however, consider that we still lack a sufficiently good statistics, but we have a good foundation for that purpose. by ascertaining this, i do not only imply to the necessity of ongoing methodological harmonization of the various statistics with the international standards and what has not been done in this light, but particularly to the satisfaction of the new needs and requirements for new statistical researches. challenges of the statistics the change in the conditions of the operating environment of the central banks brings about a change in their needs and interests in statistical data. i would therefore like to underline several events in the economy that happened over the recent several years that considerably affected the development of the statistics and that indicate the need of new statistical researches : • first, the rapidly increased role of the financial sector that significantly affected the dynamics, quality and structure of the economy in the future. for the central banks, this means an obligation to make deeper analyses in this area, requiring an availability of more detailed and relevant statistical data. here, i especially refer to more detailed data on and from other financial institutions ( investment funds, private pension funds, insurance companies, etc. ) and to the new financial instruments developed in line with the development of the financial market. • second

the central banks ) are seen as overly constraining the room for maneuver, revisiting them should not be taboo. after all, mandates are a means to an end. ” concerning the instruments, the current debates focus on whether the unconventional tool kit is temporary, as initially considered, or will become conventional tool supplementing the traditional monetary instrument. this is, in particular, in the context of the ultra - low interest rate environment and still anemic recovery. some of the instruments ( balance sheet policies ) have even blurred the clear lines between the fiscal and monetary policy, and challenged the notion of central bank independence. given the importance of the good statistics on monetary policy decision making, what does this new financial landscape imply for statistics? the crises usually tend to provide an impetus for reshaping of our thinking about the statistical concepts / frameworks of proper policymaking. thus, the great depression shifted the focus to development of national accounts, growth of the euro - dollar markets during 1960 s and 1970s to the development of international banking statistics, and asian financial crisis shifted the focus to strong linkages between the financial and external stability being conducive to development of data standards initiatives ( gdds, sdds, and roscs ). the emergence of the latest crises again bis central bankers ’ speeches put the spotlight on the financial sector, revealing the devastating impact of lax regulation of the financial sector in the more advanced economies on the global economy and once again accentuated the need for tighter surveillance of financial stability. the cross - border linkages, internationalization and integration of the financial markets and institutions were underestimated, and so were their global economic consequences. this time it was the international dimension of the financial system that was emphasized and very importantly, the macro - financial linkages. both of them do have major implications for the production of statistics and for the regular set of required data, needed for making informative decisions in monetary policy and in the micro and macro prudential area. while the crisis was not a result of a lack of proper data and the quality of statistics in the pre - crisis period was deemed satisfactory, still the crisis brought to the surface some areas that were rather poorly covered by the statistics. highly globalized world marked by high and rising trade and especially financial interconnectedness among economies, as well as strong interlinkages between different sectors within the economies, in particular financial sector ( including non - regulated segment ) and non - financial corporations due to strong macro