Under this initiative, four member economies of APEC - China, Thailand, Mexico and the Philippines - have volunteered to receive expert advice through visits from panels of experts. The objective of these visits is to assist the economies in question in identifying potential impediments in their markets and in removing these impediments through specific, achievable and monitored action plans tailored to the individual economy. The programmes under this initiative are making good progress, and, in addition to the panel visits, two policy dialogues have been held to promote understanding and experience-sharing. A second cluster of initiatives, under the ASEAN+3 forum, involves a variety of studies known as the Asian Bond Market Initiative (ABMI) on issues such as new securitised debt instruments, issuance of debt by international financial institutions, regional credit guarantees and enhancement facilities, and the establishment of local and regional credit rating and credit enhancement agencies. The third set of initiatives falls under EMEAP - the Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks - and takes the form of bond funds aimed at channelling a small portion of the very large official reserves held by the Asian economies into the region. The first of these funds - Asian Bond Fund I (ABF1) - was launched in June 2003 and is now fully invested in US dollar-denominated bonds issued by sovereign and quasi-sovereign issuers in the EMEAP economies. The EMEAP Central Banks are currently working on ABF2, which will invest in local currency-denominated Asian bonds.
Forward guidance on the path is today less important than commitment on our end objective First, in the current normalization phase, there is much less need and space for detailed forward guidance: we are no longer at the effective lower bound and  Page 5 sur 8 are coming back to our more normal reaction function—all the more so in the current uncertain environment. Accordingly, in our ECB July statement President Christine Lagarde emphasized optionality dependent on economic data, and taking decisions on a meeting-by-meeting basis. More importantly still, we strongly reiterated our commitment to our end objective of bringing inflation back to 2% in the medium-term, i.e. 2024 in our present forecasts. The more open we are about the path, the more committed we must be about the destination of the journey. Don’t get me wrong: market expectations of future policy rates remain a key driver of long-term interest rates, which are what matters most for investment and spending decisions. But forward-guidance—at least in the form of a commitment to an unconditional and/or prolonged path for the policy rate—is today an unadvisable way of steering market expectations. If you go to the hospital, it is certainly unpleasant not knowing how long you will stay there. But you certainly do not want a doctor who decides to keep you 7 days regardless of how your health evolves. Without question, you would rather have a firm commitment that he will cure you of your ailment! II.B.