Household income has been sharply restricted, particularly in 1995–96. So have public activities. In one respect, moreover, the outlook is still troublesome, namely as regards employment. Despite the economic recovery, a rapid expansion of employment has proved difficult to achieve. It is worth noting, however, that the number of private sector jobs, in services in particular, has in fact been rising continuously since 1995. But this has not made up sufficiently for the contraction of employment during the 1990s in, for example, the public sector and construction. After this review of developments in recent years, I shall now discuss the Riksbank’s appraisal of the coming twenty-four months, which is the period we need to consider when conducting monetary policy. 3. The message in June In the latest inflation report last June the Riksbank presented an economic forecast for Sweden and its implications for the path of inflation up to the middle of the year 2000. Our assessment was that the trends in recent years, with high growth and low inflation, would continue in the years ahead. The economic upswing was assumed to continue in the forecast period, with annual growth rates around 2.5 per cent this year and 3 per cent in the next two years. The forecast involved an increasing contribution from rising domestic demand, accompanied by a successive fall-off in export growth. Private consumption was expected to pick up, partly in view of rising household income.

The Islamic banking industry, through the VBI Community of Practitioners, has also issued the Value-based Intermediation Financing and Investment Impact Assessment Framework (VBIAF) sectoral guides, a set of detailed impact-based risk assessment toolkit for application in financing and investment decisions. Thus far, sectoral guides on palm oil, renewable energy and green energy efficiency have been issued with a few more in the pipeline. Likewise, the takaful industry has issued the VBI for Takaful Framework that integrates the principles of VBI into products and business practices that promote financial resilience and climate risk management for households and businesses. These complement the Climate 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  Change and Principle-based Taxonomy document issued in April this year that supports businesses transition paths by recognising climate risk mitigation and adaptation efforts over time. My third and final thrust that I would like to touch on relates to key prospects and opportunities to Islamic finance. Malaysia has thus far been at the forefront in the global halal economy. The nation’s success is attributed to a strong supportive ecosystem of which Islamic finance is a key pillar. The Malaysian Islamic finance industry players have been supporting Malaysia’s halal industry through the offering of customised halal financing packages. These entail supportive ancillary services that complement the industry’s existing financial solutions such as business matching and advisory services. Such packages are currently made available by five Islamic banks on the Halal Development Corporation (HDC)'s Halal Integrated Platform, a one-stop online advisory portal for halal companies.