samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
We are now getting close to the end of that reservoir of spare labour supply. It is very difficult to say how close; measuring spare capacity in the economy with great precision – to single decimal points – is not really possible. But for the economy to grow robustly and sustainably over the next few years’ productivity growth will need to begin to pick up. This does not need to happen overnight. But it does need to happen. The MPC’s economic forecast I am pleased to be able to say that this is the central scenario in the MPC’s latest forecast. Our forecast is for the economy to grow robustly at around 2.5% a year over the next three years. That is a bit slower than the average annual growth rate of nearly 3% in the seven years before the crisis. But it’s a great deal better than the roughly 0.5% annual average over the seven years that followed. In our forecast, growth continues to be driven by private domestic demand – essentially, household consumption and business investment, both of these have been growing strongly since the middle of 2013. Of course, given our history any forecast of sustained robust consumption growth in the UK automatically raises eyebrows; the suspicion of a debt fuelled spending boom is never far away. But our forecast of strong consumption growth over the next three years does not depend on an increase in household debt.

It is for this reason, for example, that the Bank of Zambia has supported the work of journalists in understanding economic issues and supported their associations in improving the standard of journalism in Zambia. Further, the Bank of Zambia publishes its own inhouse magazine “THE ZAMBANKER” as well as more technical economic articles mainly written by staff on topical issues in the Zambian economy in “THE BoZ READER”. Although most of the articles have been written by staff in the Bank, we have always encouraged the public to contribute articles on issues relating to the Zambian economy. In this regard, I wish to once more extend an invitation to you all to contribute articles for publication in the ZAMBANKER or indeed the BoZ READER. BIS Review 74/2008  1  Distinguished Guests, In order to effectively address the issue of how to secure a sustainable economic future, the first point of call must surely be to address the issue of illiteracy in Zambia. A good number of our citizens especially those living in the rural areas are not able to read both in English or local languages. This is a major hindrance to sustainable economic development, as it makes it very difficult to transfer new technologies and skills to the rural populace – skills that are critical in improving health and education outcomes and harnessing the tremendous potential that this country possesses. The scenario in the urban areas, though slightly better than the rural areas, still leaves much to be desired.
The banking system expanded very rapidly in just five years, from a combined balance sheet of less than 2 times GDP (at the end of 2003) to almost 10 times GDP (in mid-2008). Most of this expansion was cross-border, and a lot of it had very little to do with Iceland, as both financing and investment took place abroad. A number of domestic mistakes were made throughout the process, and I do not have time to go into them here, but the expansion of the banks was greatly facilitated by Iceland’s membership in the European Economic Area (EEA), as the EEA Agreement provides a legal and regulatory framework based on European Union Directives, including free movement of capital and provision of financial services. The underlying principles are those of home licencing for operations anywhere in the EEA and of a level playing field for competition, where size and location supposedly do not matter. This European “Passport” enabled the Icelandic banks to operate throughout the EEA, including through branches in other EEA countries. We now know that there are deep flaws in this framework and that these flaws are important elements in the current euro area crisis. A key issue here is the contradiction between, the European passport rights on the one hand and, on the other hand, national supervision, national deposit insurance and national crisis management and resolution regimes. This is what recent proposals of a banking union are supposed to deal with.

The HKMA is delighted to work with Euroclear Bank and J.P.Morgan, the two premier global tripartite repo system operators, to bring this concept to fruition. With security pools valued at EUR 10.8 trillion and $ 17.9 trillion respectively, both institutions provide a huge reservoir and a highly sophisticated platform to support cross-border cross currency lending with ample choices of securities as collateral. Linked up by the HKMA’s Central Moneymarkets Unit (CMU) as an agent, CMU members will be able to enjoy the collateral management service of the global repo operators which include functions like auto-selection and auto-substitution of collateral, collateral eligibility filters, daily mark-to-market and prudent haircut execution, all of which will help financial institutions in their collateral management processes. As a further development, we are working with our two partners to expand the repo service to allow financial institutions in Hong Kong to use their securities kept with the CMU, Euroclear and J.P. Morgan as collateral to obtain foreign currency liquidity such as US dollars from the global broker dealers in the second half of 2012. This will help local companies and financial institutions to obtain foreign currency liquidity as they expand their business overseas. Finally, the HKMA has a long term vision for repo financing to become a more important source of funding for companies and banks in Hong Kong.
Brunner and Meltzer’s classic monetarist account emphasises the importance of a rich set of credit, term and liquidity premia in monetary policy transmission. These premia drive the spreads between the policy rate established by central bank and the interest rates at which firms and households borrow, which are most relevant for spending and pricing decisions in the real economy. Brunner and Meltzer conclude that these spreads are largely unobservable – in particular, in a bank-centred financial system they will be codified in loan covenants and pricing that are proprietary and/or confidential. Monetary quantities play an important role in characterising the transmission mechanism because they both influence and summarise this body of information in spreads and premia in a way that is both accessible and relevant. Changes in financial structure over recent decades have implications for the Brunner / Meltzer motivation of monetarist transmission. Not only are credit conditions surveys and bank level data on funding costs and the pricing of loans more readily available, but the greater importance of asset markets and NBFIs in the provision of external finance to firms implies that spreads and premia are more often transparently priced in open markets. The focus has correctly shifted towards NBFIs. This has led to the construction of weighted averages of asset prices – so-called Financial Condition Indices (FCIs) – as an alternative to monetary aggregates for capturing the impact of financial pricing on monetary policy transmission. [13] But the weights assigned to different asset prices are controversial and experience with such indices has been mixed.

Bank customers can process an e-Cheque any time. II. As physical boundaries and barriers are no more, both payers and payees can enjoy the e-Cheque service with the convenience of mobile phones or Internet banking platforms anywhere. III. E-cheques are quick and easy to use. In just a few simple steps, the payer can issue an e-Cheque via an Internet banking platform. Upon receiving the e-Cheque, Adopting a highly secure digital signature, e-Cheques remove the need for the payer’s handwritten signature as required with paper cheques, reducing the risk of forgery. V.  Unlike certain electronic payments or funds transfers, the payee does not need to disclose his bank account number to the payer in order to receive an e-Cheque payment, which means greater privacy protection. For those payees who have more than one account, he can also enjoy the flexibility of deciding which account to deposit an e-Cheque into. VI. Corporates and institutions which issue a huge volume of paper cheques can save substantial sums on printing, processing and mailing those cheques. In Hong Kong, listed companies process over 2 million physical cheques each year for dividend payments. Both paper consumption and mailing costs can be reduced substantially each year if shareholders agree switchinig to e-Cheques to receive these payments. Looking forward 4. The e-Cheque is only at the beginning of its development.
But the interest rates households and companies could borrow at did not fall as much, as risk and liquidity premiums increased at the same time. However, these observations do not mean that the effects of changes in the repo rate have altered. A more reasonable interpretation is that the cuts in the repo rate have been counteracted by, and perhaps sometimes drowned  BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  in, other effects.22 If the repo rate had not been cut as aggressively, households and companies would most probably have had to pay higher interest rates. Misinterpreted: Monetary policy in small economies is determined internationally A traditional textbook account would say that a country that has a floating exchange rate and allows the free mobility of capital across national borders can formulate its monetary policy to attain a domestic inflation target. But Rey (2013) claimed recently in a widely-read paper that this conclusion is no longer valid. She argued that globalisation and the increasing international flows of capital meant that monetary policy around the world must adapt to monetary policy in the dominant economies, primarily the United States. Rey’s theory is that large amounts of capital will flow into a country that tries to conduct a tighter monetary policy. The capital inflow will either lead to an undesired appreciation of the country’s currency or to asset prices in the country rising too quickly.

Import prices have been falling since the middle of 2012. One contributory factor was the rapid strengthening of the krona in the summer of 2012. During 2013, the krona fluctuated somewhat, but on average it was stronger than in 2012. This, together with the fact that global export prices have in principle remained unchanged, has continued to dampen import prices although these are no longer falling to any great extent.7 Sometimes the impact of developments in international economic activity and prices on domestic inflation is regarded as unrelated to monetary policy in Sweden. I consider this to be a mistaken point of view. But before I return to this question, I would like to explain why I am worried about inflation being so low. 7  Figure A4 in the appendix shows developments for global market prices (global export prices), the nominal exchange rate and import prices. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Why should we worry about low inflation? We have thus noted that inflation has been below the two per cent target in recent years, and also lower than the Riksbank and other analysts had expected. But is the low inflation really something we need to worry about? My answer is yes. I shall explain why. Surprisingly low inflation leads to arbitrary reallocation Some of the problems with low inflation arise if inflation is surprisingly low. For example, this leads to arbitrary reallocations from borrowers to lenders.
William C Dudley: The importance of financial conditions in the conduct of monetary policy Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, Sarasota, Florida, 30 March 2017. * * * It is a pleasure to be here today. I would like to thank the University of South Florida for sponsoring this conference. As always, what I have to say today reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) or the Federal Reserve System.1 One aspect of today’s event is the dedication of a financial laboratory to help students learn about financial markets, which I think has great value. Knowledge of how financial markets operate is an important aspect of financial and economic literacy, and it leads to greater financial security over time. For example, one important lesson is that when the promised returns on an investment offering are extraordinarily high, it is because the investment is either very risky or fraudulent. When investing, it is important to remember that if it seems to be too good to be true, it likely is! Today, I want to take the opportunity to talk about the importance of financial markets in influencing the economic outlook and, in turn, U.S. monetary policy. This is a subject near and dear to my heart.

This has led to continued, sturdy monthly job gains and a gradual diminution of the amount of slack in the U.S. labor market. Forward-looking indicators foreshadow a continuation of this trend. For example, household and business confidence has increased markedly over the past few months. 4/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  The economic outlook abroad also appears to have brightened. Growth has picked up in Europe. Commodity prices have risen, reducing the pressure on emerging market economies that are major commodity exporters. There are still significant uncertainties and risks abroad, but overall, these risks seem significantly lower than they were a year ago. Inflation has moved closer to our 2 percent longer-run objective. Headline inflation on a yearover-year basis has moved up in the past few months as the sharp declines in energy prices in late 2015 and early 2016 have fallen out of the calculation. Core inflation—which ignores the more volatile movements in energy and food prices—also has moved slightly higher. Over the 12 months through January 2017, the core personal consumption expenditure deflator has risen at about 1.75 percent, up from 1.6 percent a year earlier. Thus, I have become more confident that inflation will stabilize around the FOMC’s objective over the medium term. While there is still considerable uncertainty about fiscal policy and its potential contribution to economic activity, it seems likely that it will shift over time to a more stimulative setting.
We need a holistic approach for Asia's energy transition that meets three objectives: reduce emissions significantly; meet growing energy demands; and limit any adverse impact on jobs and communities. Neither the continued burning of coal nor the immediate cessation of coal plants meets all three objectives. What we need is a coherent strategy for the managed phaseout of coal that achieves environmental sustainability, energy security, and a just transition for communities whose livelihoods depend on coal. Finance alone is not enough but it can play a critical role in getting us from coal to clean. A combination of public and private capital, coupled with appropriate policy reforms, can provide the right economic model to encourage owners to voluntarily wind down their coal fired power plants ahead of their technical end of life. We will also need innovative financing structures to blend public and private capital. But there are significant challenges to financing the early retirement of coal. Financial institutions will need to justify how such financing is consistent with their net-zero commitments, especially when their financed emissions rise over the short term. They will need to address potential greenwashing concerns that new coal capacity is being created to replace the coal plants being phased out early. There is a lack of scalable risk sharing mechanisms to support coal plant owners in their transition to cleaner energy.

This is why the GFANZ APAC Network is launching today for public consultation a report providing detailed guidance on financing the managed phaseout of coal fired power plants in the region. The guidance aims to ensure that managed phaseout transactions are climate credible, economically viable, and socially inclusive. It proposes a three-step process. First, ensuring that there are credible plans for coal phaseout at the government, company, and project level. This is critical to address two key risks in managed phaseout projects: one, 'emissions leakage' where the closure of a coal fired power plant is offset by increased operation of other coal plants or new coal plants built. 2/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  second risk, moral hazard, where a phaseout transaction perversely encourages more coal power generation in order to later benefit from a potential coal phaseout plan. Second, optimising meaningful outcomes across climate impact, financial viability and socio-economic considerations. There are several measures financial institutions can take to achieve this. one, prioritise projects that align with a science-based pathway that is consistent with timelines set by internationally recognised bodies; two, ensure measures are in place to support access to secure, reliable, and affordable clean energy; three, assess the programmes that are in place to mitigate adverse socioeconomic impacts, such as social cost assessments, stakeholder engagement, land repurposing plans, and worker and community transition plans; and four, conduct a holistic financial viability assessment of the project including the cost of socio-economic support measures.
Indeed, by urging governments to aim at a fiscal position "close to balance or in surplus" in the medium term, the pact enables them to let fiscal deficits increase during recessions without exceeding the 3% reference value. In short, it allows them to create a fiscal buffer during normal economic periods that can be drawn on to counter economic divergences or asymmetric shocks. To summarise that overall issue, the “Optimal Currency Area” theory has frequently been called upon by economists who criticized EMU and expressed concerns about giving up the exchange-rate policy instrument as a response to asymmetric shocks—in particular to asymmetric shocks within a monetary union. I would like to point out, first, that one of the most remarkable effect of the European integration has been the increasing symmetry of shocks. Second, Professor Mundell himself, in support of EMU, made an interesting clarification at the beginning of 1998: in the event of a shift in demand from one member country to another, creating unemployment in the first and inflationary pressure in the second, flexible exchange rates would not be able to solve the problem. I quote: “If the argument for devaluation were valid, it could be applied to every state or sub-region in any country, with a proliferation of new currencies, so they could be devalued!”. In the same vein, other economists suggest that dealing with divergences and asymmetries should not prove much more difficult within the euro area, at least in its major countries, than within a long-established monetary union such as the US.

Ravi Menon: Singapore as a centre for fund-raising in Asia Keynote speech by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Singapore Exchange Capital Markets Symposium, 17 November 2021. * * * Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Asia is becoming a global force in capital markets. In 2020, equity capital raised in the AsiaPacific region increased by two-thirds. Debt capital increased by 10%. The Asia-Pacific accounted for more than one third of global equity proceeds as well as one-third of debt issuance last year. There are three reasons why Asian capital markets are poised for continued rapid growth: dynamic companies with large fundraising needs; large pools of capital looking for investment opportunities; and effective platforms to match fundraising needs with capital Asia is fertile ground for innovative companies to thrive. With rising household incomes and increasingly tech-savvy consumers, Asian consumer markets are burgeoning. This has helped to spur a burst of entrepreneurship in Asia. We see this innovative energy across Asian cities, from Bangalore to Shenzhen, Jakarta to Manila, from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok, and of course Singapore. Asia is now home to a large number of high-growth companies, such as Carousell, Carro, Justco, MiRXES, and Ninja Van. To scale up, Asian companies need to raise capital. As these firms expand into more markets, they will need PE/VC funding, and eventually tap on the public markets. Asia has attracted substantial institutional funds from around the world.
With a temperatures ranging between 15 and 27 degrees for most parts of the year, the solar energy potential is high. The oil refineries in the country also emit gasses that can be tapped and turned into gas for domestic cookers. 3.4  Mining  Zambia’s mineral wealth remains substantial. Quite apart from the traditional mining activities in copper and cobalt the list of investment opportunities in this sector include: •  Precious metal-gold; silver; selenium;  •  The platinoid group – iron, tin, nickel and manganese;  •  Agro-minerals-rock phosphate and igneous phosphate suitable for conversion to fertilizer, peat, limestone;  •  Reclaiming of copper from slug tailing dumps;  •  Gemstones-emerald, amethyst, aquamarine, tourmaline;  •  Nickel;  BIS Review 76/2008  5  •  Uranium; and  •  Other deposits-talc, fluorspar, graphite, barites and clays, etc. The 1995 Mines and Minerals Act provide exemption from import duty and VAT on all machinery and equipment, including specialised motor vehicles required for prospecting or mining activities. In its 2008 Budget, the Government introduced the new fiscal and regulatory framework for the mining sector. Under this framework, the mining sector will begin to adequately contribute to the advancement of and the social economic welfare of the people of Zambia. 3.5  Tourism  Untapped tourism opportunities exist in all the 19 National Parks and 34 game management areas as well as the 23 million hectares devoted to the conservation of an amazing variety of animals.

The potential benefits of a well integrated ICT in agriculture are diverse and include: •  transparent dissemination of information such as weather patterns, seed and fertilizer use, availability and distribution;  •  easy accessibility to suppliers of inputs;  •  common distribution of information on market prices of crops; and  •  generally bringing together of suppliers and buyers of crops. Government has put agriculture at the core of rural development and poverty reduction as well as employment creation. It is therefore important to note that the expansion of ICTs in rural communities is more required now than ever before, as most information is now  4  BIS Review 76/2008  disseminated through internet and cellular phones. These facilities will help uplift the living standards of rural communities. 3.2  Agriculture  Zambia’s agriculture sector has enormous potential to become a major grower and exporter of agricultural and horticultural produce. The country has an abundance of quality land, water (over 40% of fresh water resources in Southern Africa) and ideal climate all suited to a wide range of agricultural products. Only 15% of Zambia’s 60 million hectares of arable land is under cultivation. The recent surge in food prices in the world presents an enormous opportunity for Zambia to become the food basket of the sub region. This can be achieved by re-doubling efforts to boost agricultural productivity coupled with substantial increase in infrastructure investment to ease supply bottlenecks that are pushing up prices.