Publishing the transcripts of the CNB Bank Board meetings

The Czech National Bank will provide for the public release of transcripts of the Bank Board 'monetary meetings'. The complete text of the Situational Report on monetary and economic developments (i.e. a material prepared by experts for the Bank Board discussion) including the discussion of Bank Board members with light editing will be available to the public with a six-year lag. This measure enters into force on Thursday 26 July 2001.

The Czech National Bank thus reacts chiefly to the needs of specific groups of the public, in particular economic analysts, historians of the Czech economy and the central banking, students of economics etc.

European and non-European central banks are approaching this issue in an exclusively individual manner. Some of them do not make literal transcripts at all and minority of those doing so publishes them unedited. An analogous method which the CNB will use for releasing the transcripts of CNB monetary meetings is being applied by the US Federal Reserve System (transcripts are released with a five-year lag) or the Central Bank of Japan (transcripts are released with a ten-year lag).

Alice Frišaufová
CNB spokesperson