Annual Report 1998
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Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 We mourn the death in 1998 of the following members of our staff: Johann Gebauer 21. 1. 1998 Bernd-Michael Hechler 29. 1. 1998 Dieter Mager 12. 3. 1998 Paula Eberwein 21. 3. 1998 Edda Gohmert 26. 3. 1998 Erika Klees 23. 4. 1998 Wilhelm Noll 23. 4. 1998 Klaus Richter 19. 5. 1998 Manfred Wrensch 26. 5. 1998 Dr. Friedel Wolak 27. 5. 1998 Karl-Heinz Voû 30. 5. 1998 Gerald Jarosch 2. 6. 1998 Helmut Misera 10. 6. 1998 Annemarie Baur 16. 6. 1998 Hermann Betzel 18. 6. 1998 Herbert Rass 2. 7. 1998 Hartmut Pieringer 5. 7. 1998 Ursula Hauf 8. 7. 1998 Franz Oberle 20. 7. 1998 Hilde Fusch 4. 8. 1998 Manfred Werdelmann 10. 8. 1998 Sabine Kluth 1. 9. 1998 Stephanie Hack 4. 10. 1998 Anneliese Greve 5. 10. 1998 Kurt Kanler 2. 11. 1998 Ingrid Högberg 30. 11. 1998 Elisabeth Kimmich 3. 12. 1998 Horst Langhammer 30. 12. 1998 We also keep in remembrance the retired staff members of the Bank and the former Deutsche Reichsbank who died in 1998. We will honour their memory. DEUTSCHE BUNDESBANK Members of the Prof. Dr Dr h.c. mult. Hans Tietmeyer Chairman of the Central Bank Council Central Bank Dr Jürgen Stark Council of the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Council Deutsche Bundesbank Dieter Haferkamp on April 1, 1999 Wendelin Hartmann Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Reimut Jochimsen Hans-Jürgen Koebnick Prof. Dr Hans-Jürgen Krupp Klaus-Dieter Kühbacher Edgar Meister Dr Guntram Palm Prof. Dr Hermann Remsperger Helmut Schieber Peter M. Schmidhuber Ernst Welteke Dr Franz-Christoph Zeitler Members of the Prof. Dr Dr h.c. mult. Hans Tietmeyer President Directorate of of the Deutsche Bundesbank the Deutsche Johann Wilhelm Gaddum Vice-President of the Deutsche Bundesbank Bundesbank (until June 30, 1998) from May 2, 1998 Dr Jürgen Stark to April 1, 1999 Vice-President of the Deutsche Bundesbank (from September 1, 1998) Dieter Haferkamp Wendelin Hartmann Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Otmar Issing (until May 31, 1998) Edgar Meister Prof. Dr Hermann Remsperger (from September 1, 1998) Helmut Schieber Peter M. Schmidhuber Baden-Württemberg Free and Hanseatic City of Members Hamburg, Mecklenburg- Dr Guntram Palm Western Pomerania and of the President Schleswig-Holstein Executive Dr Günter Schmid Prof. Dr Hans-Jürgen Krupp Vice-President President Boards Wilhelm Ergenzinger Hans-Jürgen Siegmund of the Land Vice-President Central Banks Hans-Georg Herrmann from May 2, 1998 Free State of Bavaria Hesse to April 1, 1999 Dr Franz-Christoph Zeitler Ernst Welteke President President Dr Erich Fein Dr Hans Georg Fabritius Vice-President Vice-President Günter Bäumer Hans Daubenthaler Berlin and Brandenburg North Rhine-Westphalia Klaus-Dieter Kühbacher Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Reimut Jochimsen President President Ulrich Preuû Jürgen von der Ahe Vice-President Vice-President Kurt Riesbeck Free Hanseatic City of Rhineland-Palatinate Bremen, Lower Saxony and Saarland and Saxony-Anhalt Hans-Jürgen Koebnik Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Helmut Hesse President President (until December 31, 1998) N.N. Bolko Leopold Vice-President Horst Langefeld Vice-President Free States of Saxony Prof. Dr Erich Stoffers and Thuringia Prof. Dr Olaf Sievert President (until December 31, 1998) N.N. Dr Christian Milow Vice-President Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Deutsche Bundesbank Telex 41 227 within Germany Wilhelm-Epstein-Strasse 14 4 14 431 from abroad 60431 Frankfurt am Main Fax (0 69) 5 60 10 71 P.O.B. 10 06 02 60006 Frankfurt am Main Internet http://www.bundesbank.de Federal Republic of Germany Reproduction permitted only if source is Telephone (0 69) 95 66-1 stated. or (0 69) 95 66 . plus extension number The Annual Report is published autonomously by the Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt am ISSN 0418 -9292 Main, by virtue of section 18 of the Bundes- The German original of this Report bank Act of July 26, 1957. It is available to went to press on April 15, 1999 interested parties free of charge. Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Contents Foreword by the President of the Deutsche Bundesbank 8 The currency I. International economic fundamentals 14 and the economy Digression: The emergence of foreign exchange market turbulence 19 II. Economic trends in Germany and central bank policy 23 1. Increased groth accompanied by price stability 23 2. Fiscal policy in need of further adjustment 38 3. Foreign trade loses momentum 46 4. Monetary policy as part of the close cooperation of the EMU central banks 59 5. Financial markets beset by global turbulence 87 III. International monetary policy cooperation 100 1. European monetary integration 100 2. Expansion of the financial market crises in the second half of 1998 107 3. Improving the functioning of the 110 international monetary system 4. Recent developments regarding international financial institutions 116 Operations of the I. Processing cash payments and Deutsche Bundesbank cashless payments 122 1. Cash payments 122 2. Cashless payments 124 3. Notable developments in domestic and cross-border payments 127 II. The Bank's international transactions 134 Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Operations of the III. The Bank's money-market and refinancing Deutsche Bundesbank operations 134 (cont'd) IV. The Bank's participation in issues of Federal securities 136 V. The Bank's participation in banking supervision and changes in banking supervision legislation 144 1. International harmonisation of banking supervision 144 2. Amendments of national banking supervision legislation 147 3. Ongoing banking supervision operations 151 VI. Authorisations under monetary law 155 VII. UN/EC financial sanctions: new developments 157 VIII. Technical central bank cooperation by the Bank 158 IX. Organisation and staff 161 X. The Deutsche Bundesbank's preparations for the year 2000 164 Annual accounts for 1998 I. Balance sheet of the Deutsche Bundesbank and opening balance sheet as at December 31, 1998 172 as at January 1, 1999 of the Deutsche Bundesbank II. Profit and loss account of the Deutsche Bundesbank for the year 1998 174 III. Notes on the annual accounts for 1998 175 1. Legal basis 175 2. Assets 176 3. Liabilities 181 4. Expenditure 183 5. Receipts 184 6. Profit for the year and unappropriated profit 184 Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Annual accounts for 1998 IV. Opening balance sheet of the Deutsche and opening balance sheet Bundesbank as at January 1, 1999 186 as at January 1, 1999 of the Deutsche Bundesbank V. Notes on the opening balance sheet as at (cont'd) January 1, 1999 188 1. Legal basis 188 2. Changeover to market-price valuation 189 3. Notes on the individual balance sheet items 191 4. Transfer of foreign reserve assets 196 Records of policy 1. Record of domestic and external monetary policy measures measures 62 2. Record of general economic and fiscal policy measures 66 Tables 1. Macroeconomic benchmark figures of selected industrial countries 15 2. Key economic variables in Germany 27 3. Scope for income distribution in the economy as a whole and wage trends 33 4. Public sector finance 39 5. Indebtedness of the central, regional and local authorities 41 6. Balance of payments 53 7. Monetary developments 81 8. Sales and purchases of bonds 91 9. Planned fiscal developments according to the EU countries stability or convergence programmes 104 10. Purchases, repurchases and total credit outstanding under IMF facilities 117 11. Currency in circulation and its pattern 122 12. Counterfeits detained in payments, as recorded by the Bundesbank 123 13. The Bank's cashless payments 125 14. Bund Issues Auction Group 137 15. Bonds issued by the Federal Government in 1998 139 16. Issues of five-year special Federal bonds in 1998 141 17. Issues of Federal Treasury notes in 1998 143 Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Tables (cont'd) 18. Issues of Federal Treasury discount paper (ªBubillsº) in 1998 143 19. Issues of Federal savings bonds in 1998 143 20. Ongoing banking supervision operations 152 21. Credit register of loans of DM 3 million or more 155 22. Applications for authorisations pursuant to section 3 sentence 2 of the Currency Act, and the decisions taken 156 23. Trends in staff levels at the Bundesbank 162 Charts 1. Capital market rates of selected industrial countries 21 2. Gross domestic product and selected real expenditure components 25 3. Trends in demand 29 4. Labour market 31 5. Prices 35 6. Ratios of public sector budgets 43 7. Nominal external value of the Deutsche Mark and the euro and Germany's price competitiveness 49 8. Trend of foreign trade 51 9. Financial transactions and reserve movements 55 10. Structure of the external assets of the Bundesbank 57 11. Official interest rates and overnight interest rates 61 12. Liquidity management by the Bundesbank 73 13. Growth of the money stock M3 77 14. Growth of the monetary aggregates 79 15. The money stock and its principal counterparts 83 16. Interest rate movements in the bond market 89 17. Conditions in the equity market 95 18. Movements in selected bank interest rates 99 19. Movements of consumer prices and long-term interest rates in the euro area countries 103 20. Movements of spreads in the bond markets 109 21. Ratio of the liable capital and liable own funds of individual institutions filing Principle I reports 154 Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Branch Offices of the Deutsche Bundesbank 199 Abbreviations p Provisional and symbols r Revised e Estimated pe Partly estimated ... Figure available at a later date . Figure unknown, not to be published or not meaningful 0 Less than 0.5 but more than nil ± Nil Discrepancies in the totals are due to rounding. Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Foreword by the President of the Deutsche Bundesbank 7 Deutsche Bundesbank Annual Report 1998 Foreword On January 1, 1999, Stage Three of European economic and monetary union was launched.