, depending not only on the economic environment, but also on the public interest and trends in the communication and information networks and media, which, due to the development of technology and digitization, are changing, advancing and improving on a daily basis. the constant strengthening of transparency, that is, the promotion and development of communication with the public, including media, is a challenge for the national bank of the republic of macedonia. we work diligently to respond to the challenge, while paying attention to the two points of communication – immediate communication with the public and communication with the media. we do our best to follow the best practices of the european central banking union, which is largely confirmed with the assessments of our transparency. in doing so, we not only struggle to increase intensity, but also quality of our communication. here i would mention the practice of constantly improving the quality of information and analyses we publish, improving the methodological explanations for the statistics that we publish, timely informing of all novelties in statistical surveys, improving the structure of our website, concurrent publishing of statistics and statistical press releases for their explanation, providing international comparability of our data through continuous implementation of international standards. in this regard, we are in the final stage of creating an analytical tool for easier access and search of statistics by all external users. we hope that our commitment is noticeable for you as media representatives, who analyze our work on a daily basis, by following the press releases, data and positions that arise from the central banking operations in the country. for us, you, the journalists, are one of the main conveyors of monetary policy messages to the public. not as our spokespersons, but as individuals and professionals respected by the public, who daily follow our work, which is very often presented in tables, graphs, reviews and data series that almost always require focused reading and analysis before being commented. the same focus is required for our reports, where even footnotes contain important data that 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches ensure analytical and studious rather than only informative reporting. accurately and precisely communicated or analyzed data is crucial for timely and professional information to the public. unfortunately, even unintentionally inaccurate or incomplete communication or analysis of central bank data and views, especially in times when the information / news are transmitted at the speed of light, can create undesired environment for the economy, especially if it creates an unreasonable panic among the public. comprehensive and thorough communication requires understanding of many methodological aspects

petar goshev : macedonia ’ s prudent monetary and fiscal policy speech by mr petar goshev, governor of the national bank of the republic of macedonia, at the press conference, skopje, 26 march 2009. * * * i. for longer than one decade now, the national bank of the republic of macedonia has been successfully implementing the strategy of retaining the stable foreign exchange rate of the denar, through a successful mix of prudent monetary and fiscal policy. the choice for this strategy is not incidental. macedonia is a small, fully open economy and extremely import - export dependant and unfortunately highly euroized country. historically, it had suffered high inflationary as well as hiperinflationary schocks, which are deeply curved in people ’ s memory. for such characteristics of the economy and with such negative experiences, the stable foreign exchange rate of the denar has a tremendous importance for the price stability and for the positive expectations of the economic agents related to macroeconomic environment. since none of the stated characteristics of our economy has not been changed, we in the national bank of the republic of macedonia deeply believe that following up with the existing monetary strategy – keeping the stable exchange rate of the denar, as the main anchor in the economy – should continue. this means, i. e. let me repeat once again, that we continue to defend the stability of the foreign exchange rate with all instruments and measures available as of the monetary institution. ii. in accordance with this strategy, during the past period, i. e. starting at end - 2007 and during the whole of 2008, being concerned first of all because of the growing inflation but also of the growing deficit of our economy to the rest of the world, we undertook a number of measures for tightening the monetary policy. however, in the meantime, the world crisis has deepened. in the fourth quarter of 2008 it started delivering to us high „ paying invoices ”. the demand as well as the prices for our main export products dropped dramatically. this continues even stronger in the first quarter of the this year. at the same time domestic aggregate demand ( stimulated by the wage and pension growth, higher budget consumption and the high credit growth ) was not appropriately and timely accommodated in accordance with the foundations of the economy. the trade as well as the current account deficit were growing, without being followed by the appropriate inflows in both, the capital and the financial account in the balance of payment. practically