Press Releases

"The prime objective of monetary policy is the maintenance of price stability," emphasized Klaus Liebscher, Governor of the Oesterreichischen Nationalbank (OeNB), on the occasion of the opening of the 33^rd Economics Conference of the OeNB, which is being held on the topic of "Monetary Policy and Financial Stability" on May 12 and 13, 2005, at the Vienna Marriott Hotel. To achieve this objective, central banks require a stable financial environment; in fact, price stability and financial stability are frequently so closely related that economic analysis at central banks inevitably encompasses both areas, as Klaus Liebscher explained in his remarks about the choice of this year’s conference topic.

The conference has attracted numerous speakers and participants from Austria and abroad, among them keynote speaker Takatoshi Kato, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank, and Jaime Caruana, Governor of the Banco de España and Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

The central themes of the conference are being discussed in sessions entitled "Macroeconomic Policies and Financial Stability," "Institutional and Regulatory Issues," and "Micro-Challenges for Financial Institutions." Governor Liebscher pinpointed the great current interest in financial stability to the changes entailed by the general shift toward a competitive, dynamic and globalized financial system. Well-functioning cooperation and a regular exchange of information between central banks and supervisory authorities, underlined Liebscher, are key to the maintenance of financial stability.