less accommodative monetary policy. furthermore, prices are going up and the risk of deflation is universally considered to be very low. at the same time, the marginal benefit of further purchases is steadily declining, with market participants already bracing themselves for a certain degree of “ normalisation ". it is for the ecb governing council to decide when and how such a course of normalisation will take place. i cannot, and would not wish to, speculate on this matter. but i would like to stick to outlining what could happen from a technical point of view if the ecb governing council were to decide that the time had come to normalise monetary policy. this means that the eurosystem in a first step would decrease its net asset purchases – not in one fell swoop overnight, but with clear prior warning and gradually. 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches note that tapering net purchases isn ’ t about scaling back the high level of excess liquidity that has been built up as a result of asset purchases and – mainly targeted longer - term – refinancing operations. it ’ s about curbing the growth rate of central bank money or, in other words, slightly reducing the monthly amounts additionally provided. taken by itself, tapering net purchases is not a restrictive monetary policy tool. quite the opposite : as long as additional net purchases take place, the already accommodative monetary policy is loosened even further. and even if net purchases were discontinued, monetary policy will remain expansionary. concerning the impact of the purchase programme, it is ultimately the stock of assets in the eurosystem ’ s balance sheet which is essential, and less the flow of monthly purchases. given that reinvestments of the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the asset purchase programme take place, the stock of securities held by the eurosystem will not be reduced for the time being. as a consequence, and taking into account other monetary policy instruments in place, the monetary policy stance of the eurosystem will be accommodative for a long time to come. the banking sector would, all other things being equal, still have far more central bank money than actually needed for several years. given the abundant supply of central bank money, it can ’ t be the money market that is primarily to blame for many people ’ s concerns about tapering. what is it, then? tapering is suspected of triggering greater volatility and yield increases in

jean - pierre roth : the swiss economy and financial centre – successes and new challenges summary of a speech by mr jean - pierre roth, chairman of the governing board of the swiss national bank and chairman of the board of directors of the bank for international settlements, at the handelskammer schweiz - osterreich und liechtenstein ( foreign trade chamber for switzerland - austria and liechtenstein ), vienna, 25 february 2008. the complete speech can be found in german on the swiss national bank ’ s website ( www. snb. ch ). * * * mid - 2003 saw the start of a remarkable, broad - based economic upswing in switzerland which is still underway, even if business cycle uncertainty has increased in the recent period. a number of factors indicate that the long - term growth outlook, too, has improved for switzerland. these factors include the increasing globalisation of our economy and the opening up of the labour market to the eu. the swiss economy is participating in globalisation through increased direct investment as well as growing foreign trade. at the same time, there is more competition on the domestic goods market, although a fair bit still remains to be done in this area to complement the opening up of the labour market to the eu. globalisation and market opening present companies and economic policymakers with challenges that become particularly acute when setbacks occur – as in the case of the current international financial market turbulence. although the international money markets have now calmed somewhat, we have not yet seen the end of the turmoil on the financial markets – neither for the financial institutions involved nor for the international economy. after four years of strong growth and low inflation, this means more difficult times ahead for the swiss economy. due to the turbulence on the financial markets, the economic outlook has become more uncertain while, at the same time, inflationary pressure has heightened over the past few months – not such a comfortable position for a central bank. a positive element remains the achievements of the past few years, which have laid the foundations for a higher long - term growth trend. these need to be further improved in order to retain switzerland as a dynamic business location.