The Statistics Pocket Book is updated monthly. In general, the cut-off date for the statistics included in the Pocket Book is the day preceding the Governing Council of the ECB’s first meeting of the month. For this issue, it was 12 January 2011. Unless otherwise indicated, all data series including observations for 2011 relate to the “Euro 17” (i.e. the euro area including Estonia) for the whole time series. For interest rates, monetary statistics, the HICP and reserve assets (and, for consistency reasons, the components and counterparts of M3 and the components of the HICP), euro area statistical series take into account the changing composition of the euro area.