Particular thanks go to our colleagues from the national central banks for their contributions to today’s conference. Without their invaluable contributions we would clearly not be where we are today in terms of scope, breadth and frequency of the statistics available to the whole ESCB, the markets and the public at large.
An unfavorable rating would mean that the businesses, including financial institutions, would face greater scrutiny, higher costs of doing business, delays and other time consuming including unnecessary barriers when doing business with overseas counterparts. 3.