Media Release Statements on Monetary Policy:
Revised Publication Arrangements

The Reserve Bank's latest Statement on Monetary Policy was released today. Since 1997, the Bank has released four key documents on monetary policy each year. These are two Semi-Annual Statements, which form the basis of the Governor's appearance before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration, which appear in May and November, and two documents entitled The Economy and Financial Markets, which appear in February and August.

The format and information content of these two sets of documents have been virtually identical, but the arrangements for their release have differed. Until now, the practice has been to release the Semi-Annual Statements as stand-alone documents (and then subsequently to reproduce them in the Reserve Bank Bulletin); The Economy and Financial Markets has been released only as part of the Bulletin. This meant, in the latter case, a longer lag between the document's completion and its release.

It has now been decided to release the four documents on a consistent basis. There will be four Statements on Monetary Policy each year, which will appear in February, May, August and November. These will be released as stand-alone documents, on the same schedule as has been used recently for the May and November Statements. In effect, the February and August documents will now appear a little earlier than under the old arrangements. The format and information content will be similar to the existing documents. All the Statements will be reproduced in the following issue of the Bulletin and will, of course, be available on the Bank's web site.

The next Statement on Monetary Policy will appear in February 2001. The precise release date will be advised ahead of time on the web site in the usual way.