Let me also point out that the nominal effective exchange rate of the euro area in early March stood around 1% below its level on 1 February and around 4% below its starting level on 4 January 1999.
At the same time, recent developments appear to have led to a reduction in some of the uncertainties surrounding the evolution of the world economy in 1999. This mainly relates to the strong  1  BIS Review 25/1999  performance of the US economy, but may also be due to signs of improvement in the real economies of some Asian countries.