*  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, On behalf of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), allow me to warmly welcome you to the Eighth ECB Statistics Conference. These biennial conferences are by now a well-established tradition and always give new and valuable impetus to our work in the field of statistics.
Hence, efforts to become an EU member have enhanced Latvia’s progress towards integration into the world economy. On the other hand, membership in the EU requires a well-functioning market economy, one which is able to cope with competitive pressures and market forces within the union, as well as the capacity to undertake the obligations of membership.