Gent Sejko: Economic research - discussions and developments
Address by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, to the 11th South-Eastern European
Economic Research Workshop, organised by the Bank of Albania, Tirana, 4 December 2017.
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Distinguished guests,
Dear participants,
It is a great pleasure to be here with you today. On behalf of the Bank of Albania, I would like to
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welcome you to the 11 South-East European Economic Research Workshop and thank you for
your continuous devotion and precious contribution.
The workshop has been evolving throughout the years, providing a useful platform for
researchers, academics and central bankers from the Region and beyond, to:
present innovative research findings, foster exchange of views,
discuss about key developments in money markets, monetary policy implementation and
central bank operational frameworks, and
develop long-term collaborative relationships.
From a strategically point of view, the main goal of economic research is to provide a strong
conceptual and empirical basis for policy-making. High-quality research leads to higher credibility
of the central bank and improves the quality of its policies. We strongly believe that a qualitative
research increases the potential contribution of the central bank on the financial markets, the
economy and the society.
Like in other European central banks, economic research at the Bank of Albania is an important
function in its overall activity, which has proved to be successful in supporting the policy
formulation and implementation processes. New methodologies provided by Research, based on
empirical models, have been adopted as standard tools of policy analysis and forecasts by other
Departments (e.g. monetary policy, financial stability, banking supervision, etc.).
This means that the mission, scope and contribution of research, assume a very important place
in Bank of Albania's development strategy. Its goals consist in:
increasing our knowledge and understanding about domestic, regional and global economy,
including the functioning of the financial system;
developing high-quality models, tools and analysis to support better the monetary policy and
financial stability;
participating in research international networks (Region and Euro system), to facilitate the
exchange of opinions and views with other central banks; and
delivering reliable advice to policymakers and sharing findings and conclusions with market
participants, foreign investors and to the public.
Furthermore, during this year, research at the Bank of Albania extended its activity to include
historical research. The outcome was the Conference on "Money and banking in Albania, from
antiquity to nowadays", which brought together many scholars, numismatists, archaeologists,
and researchers of monetary and economic history.
Turning to the very reason why we are all here today...
Recently, research has focused on various topics related to:
financial market infrastructure and potential implications for financial stability and banking
supervision;
implementation of the new IFRS standards;
rapid development of the financial market and its instruments, and
institutional developments in domestic and international markets.
All of them are currently hot topics of economic research and I am happy to note that they
occupy a significant part of this workshop's agenda. Additionally, I am very happy to see that
traditional issues of monetary policy and developments in the external sector of the economy will
also be discussed during the two days of the workshop.
In my opinion, such a broad coverage makes the agenda quite interesting. We are confident that
research papers that will be presented during the workshop days will provide some guidance on
how to approach several issues arising from the recent economic developments, regionally and
beyond. Many of them are similar across countries; therefore, collective cooperation would be
quite useful.
Without further ado, I would like to invite you to actively participate in and conduct a very lively and
fruitful debate. I truly believe that constructive discussions and comments, which will certainly
take place during the workshop, will contribute to enhancing further cooperation among
researchers, and between the institutions.
For all these reasons, I thank you once again for your invaluable contribution to this annual
meeting of researchers and wish you a successful and fruitful workshop!