The total amounts of foreign exchange purchased and sold by the Central Bank from 2002 onwards are shown year by year in the table below:  6  BIS Review 4/2008  Table 2: The Central Bank’s net foreign exchange purchases and sales (2002-2007; USD million) Year  FX Buying Auctions  FX Selling Auctions  FX Buying Interventions  FX Selling Interventions  Total Net FX Buying  2002  795  -  16  12  799  2003  5,652  -  4,229  -  9,881  2004  4,104  -  1,283  9  5,378  2005  7,442  -  14,565  -  22,007  2006  4,296  1,000  5,441  2,105  6,632  2007*  9,494  -  -  -  9,494  Total  31,783  1,000  25,534  2,126  54,191  * As of 14 December 2007. Unless extraordinary differences are observed in foreign exchange liquidity conditions, foreign exchange buying auctions will continue in 2008 with the aforementioned amount that has been set as USD 90 million maximum with USD 30 million for auction amount and USD 60 million for optional selling amount.
The importance of Special CPI aggregates Due to its comprehensive context coming from its definition, consumer price index can be exposed to temporary fluctuations. Core indicators allow for differencing out the price movements in items unaffected by monetary policy actions, and thus enable much better analysis of the main inflation trend. For instance, the impact of a significant increase in energy prices on consumer prices can be analyzed by using a price index excluding energy prices. Similarly, a temporary price increase arising from one-time movement in special consumption tax levied on tobacco products can also be identified by using special CPI aggregates excluding the item in consideration. A series of supply-side shocks that have occurred over the last 2 years have underlined the importance of special CPI aggregates. The relevant indicators, which may also be called as “core” indices, have played an important role in the communication of monetary policy decisions in 2007. Undoubtedly, it is not possible to define a single core indicator for inflation that can disregard all temporary effects observed in consumer prices. For instance, the Special CPI Aggregates issued by the Turkish Statistical Institute does not exclude processed food group. As we have experienced recently, the drought has a negative impact on core measures via processed food prices. In other words, although the main inflation trend has not worsened, the growth rate of special CPI aggregates can display increases stemming from processed food prices.