In addition to the severe economic outlook, we were in a very difficult position in regard to room for further policy actions. There was almost no room for further rate reduction because the call rate, which was our operational target, was as low as 0.25 percent at the beginning of 2001 due to the series of drastic monetary easing measures taken in the 1990s.
The balance principle is important to maintaining the blue-chip status of the bonds and has a great deal of the credit for the very high rating enjoyed by Danish mortgage-credit bonds. The balance principle is fundamentally a very simple way of managing risk.