Consolidated opening financial statement of the Eurosystem as at 1 January 2008 and Consolidated financial statement of the Eurosystem as at 4 January 2008

In the week ending 4 January 2008, the decrease of EUR 76 million in gold and gold receivables (asset item 1) reflected the sale of gold by one Eurosystem central bank (consistent with the Central Bank Gold Agreement of 27 September 2004).

The net position of the Eurosystem in foreign currency (asset items 2 and 3 minus liability items 7, 8 and 9) decreased by EUR 0.2 billion to EUR 155.2 billion on account of customer and portfolio transactions.

The holdings by the Eurosystem of marketable securities of euro area residents denominated in euro (asset item 7) remained virtually unchanged at EUR 98.2 billion. Banknotes in circulation (liability item 1) fell by EUR 9 billion to EUR 670.8 billion. Liabilities to general government (liability item 5.1) increased by EUR 10 billion to EUR 50.1 billion.

The Eurosystem’s net lending to credit institutions (asset item 5 minus liability items 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 4) decreased by EUR 127.4 billion to EUR 397 billion. On Friday, 4 January 2008, two main refinancing operations of EUR 348.6 billion and EUR 20 billion matured and a new one of EUR 128.5 billion was settled. On the same day, fixed-term deposits fell by EUR 102.3 billion on account of primarily the maturity of a liquidity-absorbing fine-tuning operation of EUR 101.6 billion conducted through the collection of fixed-term deposits.

Recourse to both the marginal lending facility (asset item 5.5) and the deposit facility (liability item 2.2) was EUR 0.6 billion (compared with EUR 0.1 billion and EUR 9.1 billion respectively in the consolidated opening financial statement of the Eurosystem as at 1 January 2008).

As a result of all transactions, the current account position of credit institutions with the Eurosystem (liability item 2.1) decreased by EUR 126.3 billion to EUR 143.7 billion.