samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Jean-Pierre Roth: Switzerland - small, but global Speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Swiss Chinese Chamber of Commerce (SwissCham), Beijing, 10 June 2005. *  *  *  I am pleased to be a guest here today at the Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and speak a few words to you. I am sure it is not necessary to convince any of you of the importance of globalisation and trade. You are living proof of our export sector’s dynamism and willingness to adapt to changing circumstances. By your presence in China, you contribute not only to our country’s influence abroad, but also to the expansion of its economy. As you know, economic globalisation often gets bad press in Switzerland. Some of our fellow citizens condemn it, hoping that barriers to delocalisation might strengthen the situation on our labour market. But let’s not be led astray by these scaremongers! Those who succumb to those fears fall victim to an illusion. A policy of inactivity is not synonymous with consolidation, but with decline. It is important to realise that Swiss investment abroad, particularly in low-wage countries, secures the high added value jobs we have at home. As a small country, we therefore have no other choice but to trade with the rest of the world if we want to prosper. This means that we will be continuously faced with the challenge of international competition.

However, this should not stop an action started by the supervisor to deal with a presumed problem in the bank. The supervisory management and staff must also have reasonable protection should they be sued for their bona fide decisions taken as supervisors. In some countries the supervisors are harassed by frivolous lawsuits by bank owners, managers or other parties. Even if the supervisor is in the end acquitted from any guilt, the process may take years. During this time the supervisor will be severely hampered in performing her job having to concentrate on her defence. Such lawsuits will also reduce the willingness of other supervisors to take necessary supervisory decisions, since they are themselves afraid of being sued. A first line of defence is to take all major supervisory decisions in a collegiate fashion at the top level. Thus only the agency such can be sued as an institution. Nevertheless, should individual supervisors be sued, they must be provided assistance in the court proceedings, such as legal counsel and protection against any costs. Of course, if the supervisor is finally found guilty and have not acted in good faith, the supervisory agency could reclaim any outlays. The second issue is that the supervisors must have a sufficiently large and skilled staff with satisfactory resources. With too few, or not adequately skilled supervisors, bank problems may not be detected early enough which may lead to major crises. With too many supervisors interventions in the banks might become excessive, thus interfering in banks’ daily business.
These include the low precipitation that affected hydroelectric power, various diseases that affected livestock and the fact that Sweden and southern Europe suffered poor harvests. We are in agreement with other forecasters and analysts that the inflation rate will fall as the effects of the transitory price rises abate and inflation approaches 2 per cent in early summer. In the longer term perspective, however, the picture looks slightly different and developments indicate an inflation rate above the target of 2 per cent. The assessment contained in the main scenario of the most recent Inflation Report has CPI inflation at 2.2 per cent one year ahead and 2.4 per cent two years ahead. The corresponding forecast for underlying inflation, UND1X, is an increase of 2.2 per cent at both one and two years ahead. It is the latter measure that is the most central to monetary policy. However, each inflation assessment also takes into account the risk spectrum. The risk spectrum mainly concerns domestic inflationary pressure. If resource utilisation comes under greater strain than the Riksbank has estimated in its main scenario, or if the potential growth rate has been overestimated, there is a risk that inflation will be higher than expected in future. Taking into account the risk spectrum, underlying inflation comes out at 2.3 per cent both one year and two years ahead. Although the inflation rate is expected to fall over the coming months, the forecasts indicate that it will exceed the inflation target one to two years ahead.

Negative signals are coming from manufacturing, where companies' profit expectations are subdued in both the USA and Europe. However, the first reports just presented for Q1 look better than the market had expected. Although as private consumption has been relatively strong in the USA, there is no pent-up need to purchase capital goods as is usually the case after an economic downturn. Household consumption may also be negatively affected if households' wealth in property, and not just equity, is undermined. If the US long rates continue to rise as they have done in recent years, this may be one of the consequences. A large part of Sweden's exports go to the euro area, which means that developments in economic activity here are particularly important. There are fewer signs of a recovery in Europe and the upturn in economic activity may be less strong. However, if one examines the leading indicators, companies appear to have become more optimistic. All in all, it can be concluded that growth prospects in the world around us have improved. The effects of the expansionary monetary and fiscal policy conducted on both sides of the Atlantic are becoming more tangible. The slowdown in economic activity therefore looks to be relatively limited. At the same time, there are risks. The structural imbalances in the US economy, which were built up during the end of the 1990s as a result of excessive optimism, are threatening to slow down the recovery.
Perhaps one of the stumbling blocks has been the choice of wage settlements at industry level and the large wage increases for employees outside the two largest employer/employee organisations (NHO and LO). The high wage growth awarded to groups whose wages are determined through individual agreements indicates that the labour market has been tight. The rise in salaries for white-collar workers and managers may also reflect weak cost control in enterprises and organisations following a long period of expansion. For a long time, a stable exchange rate and labour costs among our trading partners formed an anchor for wage determination. Since 1998, however, the rise in labour costs in Norway has been around 2 percentage points higher than that of our trading partners. High wage growth, combined with the global downturn and a strong krone, is having a severe impact on manufacturing. It is the combined wage growth for all groups that influences the inflation outlook. However, substantial wage increases for some groups can trigger wage spirals. Wages for salaried staff in the business sector have exhibited sharp growth. This year, it appears that wage increases will particularly be high in the public sector and in parts of the private service sector. Over time, growth in real wages must be consistent with growth in labour productivity. With an inflation target of 2½ per cent and trend growth in the economy of 2 per cent, there will be scope for annual nominal wage growth of about 4½ per cent.

Conclusion The short-term outlook for financial stability appears to be favourable. In the long term, high and rising household debt is a source of uncertainty. Admittedly, household financial wealth has also increased, but debt and wealth are unequally distributed across different household groups. Low interest rates and stable macroeconomic developments indicate that the outlook for households is favourable in the short term. In the longer term, the higher household debt burden represents a source of instability in demand and output. 6  BIS Review 39/2005
Svein Gjedrem: The labour market, business cycles and monetary policy Speech by Mr Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the annual conference for managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMB-dagen), Bergen, 27 September 2007. The text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The address is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 26 September and in Monetary Policy Report 2/07. *  *  *  Monetary policy is oriented towards low and stable inflation. The operational target of monetary policy is consumer price inflation of close to 2½ per cent over time. The objective of low and stable inflation provides the economy with a nominal anchor. This means that all economic agents – households and enterprises, whether large or small – can plan ahead on the assumption that inflation is, and will continue to be, low and stable. In a small, open and decentralised market economy like Norway, and with our particular industry structure, there will be cyclical fluctuations. When economic agents are confident that inflation will be low and stable over time, the interest rate can also be set with a view to dampening the fluctuations somewhat. The labour market plays an important role in the effect on inflation of the key policy rate, which is the instrument of monetary policy. First, as interest rates rise, household and local government consumption and investment will tend to fall. Lower demand leads to lower output and employment.

Now, the situation has rather been the opposite: comprehensive lending from the Riksbank, but very limited loan losses on the home market for the banks. How can this be explained? Well – as a reflection of the nature of the crisis. Back then, in the early 1990s, the banks had suffered  2  For example, in the euro area, the price index HICP measures inflation without the effects of changes in mortgage interest expenditure. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  loan losses in the commercial property sector, which impacted on profitability in the banking sector and led to a degree of restructuring aimed at maintaining capital adequacy; it was a solvency crisis, rather than a liquidity crisis. This time, in conjunction with the financial crisis, an acute shortage of liquidity instead arose in the banks when the functioning of the capital markets became impaired. A further sign that the financial crisis is behind us is that the Riksbank has now wound up all of the extraordinary measures adopted during the crisis. It was not entirely easy to understand the development of the financial crisis while it was unfolding. Today, however, the view is much clearer. This brings us to the question of where we are today. Where are we now? Strong recovery after the crisis The Swedish economy has recovered very strongly from the financial crisis. The growth of GDP in Sweden is very high from both a historical and an international perspective.
Others, however, have restricted their monetary policies responding to higher inflationary and exchange rate pressures related to fiscal, monetary or external vulnerabilities. Anyway, the slower growth expected in China, lower commodity prices, less expansionary international financial conditions, the contractionary adjustments in some large emerging economies and the need to progress in the strengthening of the Chinese financial system plus its growth re-composition are behind the vision that emerging economies will expand at a slower pace than during the last three years. The baseline scenario of our Monetary Policy Report foresees that, after expanding at 3.4 percent in 2013, our trading partners will grow by 3.6 and 3.8 percent in 2014 and 2015, respectively, somewhat less than we thought in September. In this context, inflation has been below expectations in both emerging and developed economies. Commodity prices have dropped. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have eased with respect to a few months ago, as have some refinery problems in the United States, which led to lower actual and expected fuel prices compared with September. The copper price, after remaining fairly stable for some months, posted a decline in recent weeks, so the price outlook for the metal remains unchanged from the previous Report. Accordingly, the baseline scenario assumes that the terms of trade will not divert from those in the last Report (table 1).

As I have already mentioned, our baseline scenario estimates that the Chilean economy will expand 4.2 percent in 2013, and between 3.75 and 4.75 percent in 2014, slightly less than forecast in September. In 2014, gross fixed capital formation will grow near the rate of this year. As for consumption, the baseline scenario foresees a slight deceleration from 2013. This forecast combines, on one hand, a moderation in private income growth, inflation converging to 3 percent and an exchange rate depreciation that will affect durable consumption. On the other, still optimistic consumer expectations and a strong labor market – although not as tight as this year – that will continue to underpin consumption. This scenario assumes an external impulse similar to September’s. Furthermore, it considers that part of the inventory depletion of recent quarters is an unwanted development, so it will be reversed in the coming months. Taking into account the weaker imports and stronger exports, this scenario also foresees a narrowing of the current account deficit compared with the September estimate: 3.2 percent of GDP this year and 3.7 percent in 2014. The surprise here – a positive one indeed – is that some of the trends that were anticipated in previous reports, have come sooner and stronger. In particular, the maturation of the mining investment cycle, which has been one of the main sources of the higher deficit due to its import component, has allowed copper exports to grow beyond expectations, while capital imports have begun to decline.
To date, this has focused on capital, but will be expanded over the next year to encapsulate local implementation of the LCR, as well as the frameworks for global and domestic systemically important banks (G-SIBs and D-SIBs), since these come into effect over the next couple of years;  •  undertake a full set of implementation assessments for 2013. We will conduct reviews of Singapore, Switzerland, China, Australia, Brazil and Canada. Follow-up  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  reviews of the European Union and the United States are also planned once their Basel III regulations are finalised; and •  publish a report on the initial, detailed review of risk-weighted asset calculations for the banking book; we hope to publish the full results by the summer. Together with the recently published results on the trading book, this analysis identifies the specific drivers that lead to variations in risk weights for similar exposures. The Committee’s next step will then be to consider policy responses to reduce any unwarranted variability and to therefore improve the comparability of banks’ ratios. A theme I will be returning to is the importance of this implementation monitoring work for the Committee. While it is a relatively new component of the Committee’s mandate, it should not be seen as an adjunct to the Committee’s standard-setting role. Rather, it is absolutely critical to successfully delivering desired policy outcomes. Where to next?

But one point I would stress is that whatever we decide upon, it will be designed to strengthen the current framework, and there is nothing that is being proposed that should give reason to hold off on the implementation of Basel III and other recently agreed reforms. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Enhancing the effectiveness of both micro- and macroprudential supervision Not surprisingly, the Committee’s agenda in the past few years has been dominated by policymaking. In 2012, implementation also came to the fore. But it is perhaps stating the obvious that effective supervision is the key to ensuring that regulation, once implemented, continues to work as intended. Only if supervisors are given the tools they need to act can they effectively perform their role. As the policy reform agenda moves towards completion, and the new rules are rolled out by national regulators, the Committee will increasingly turn its attention to enhancing supervisory practices. Enhancing microprudential supervision The Committee has a great deal of guidance on supervisory matters already on issue. However, much of this was developed before the financial crisis and will benefit from being updated to reflect lessons learned in recent years. Given the general applicability of much of this material, the benefits of this work will also extend well beyond Basel Committee member countries. As with all multi-year projects, this will require prioritisation. Near-term attention is likely to be given to operational risks (internal controls and information technology), governance, supervisory colleges, stress testing and dealing with weak banks.
These investments in resilience – capital and liquidity standards, central clearing of derivatives, stress testing and resolution regimes to name a few – have hugely improved the financial system’s ability to handle shocks, including to interest rates. Over these years, having two committees has worked very well. Not just because of the complementary nature of our actions and accountability, but for practical reasons too. Page 7  The MPC and FPC both need to be immersed in detail to make their decisions. After extensive discussions of leveraged lending or cryptoassets, I’m certainly glad the FPC didn’t have to make an interest rate decision! Having separate committees gives each time to focus on its own domain. Of course some of my colleagues sit on both committees, so do have to make that mental jump – although not usually in the same day. That highlights a benefit of housing both committees in the Bank – some joint membership balances focused discussions with understanding each other’s actions and developments that are relevant for both committees. The liability-driven investment fund episode The most recent test for the two committees came in the autumn of 2022. We’d faced a sequence of very large supply shocks – from bottlenecks in global supply chains during the Covid-19 period and then the war in Ukraine, which had pushed up the global prices of traded goods and commodities. And there had been domestic shocks, most noticeably a reduction in the size of the workforce. All of this pushed inflation materially above the MPC’s target.

It is vital that the commitments made to achieving balanced budgets by 200304 be firmly followed up in the Member States concerned. A continuation along the path of fiscal consolidation is essential, as is vigilance in ensuring strict adherence to the medium-term plans and rigorous implementation of the procedures of the Stability and Growth Pact. Equally, the expected recovery should be seen as an ideal opportunity to strengthen efforts towards implementing comprehensive structural reforms – in public expenditure and revenues and product, labour and financial markets. Heads of State and Government confirmed this objective during their recent meeting in Barcelona. If implemented vigorously, such reforms could increase the growth of real GDP and employment on a sustainable basis. Past improvements in the functioning of markets, together with wage moderation, have contributed to strong employment growth and a considerable reduction in unemployment. It is therefore clearly in the interest of all countries to continue to rigorously implement the agenda agreed in Lisbon and recently confirmed in Barcelona. We are now at your disposal for questions. 2  BIS Review 22/2002
The simplified procedure or relaxed „KYC‟ note allows banks to use various forms of reference documentation such as community leaders other than the traditional approach used in the past. In addition, over the years, there have been a number of positive developments in the economy. Some of these include easier access to banking services through lower bank account opening balances; relaxed KYC procedures for opening and operating accounts; improved payments systems through mobile banking, e-money, increased numbers of ATMs and point of sale terminals, and improved access to foreign exchange through various bureau de change across the country. We have also seen a broader range of financial services, including products tailored for women. Under the second phase of the FSDP, Government is implementing a number of programmes, and building capacity for key stakeholders. Specific milestones include:  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  (i)  Development of a rural finance policy – a draft report has been developed and among others, focuses on proposals for developing warehouse certificate systems, supporting financial services providers towards rural banking as well as agency banking and initiatives for rural branch expansions (e.g. Natsave). (ii)  Establishment of development fund – DBZ is now the appointed apex body for wholesale funds and is also expected to launch an enterprise development fund co-financed with the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA).

Ladies and gentlemen, As the Thai economy gradually recovers and inflationary pressure remains subdued, monetary policy will ensure that monetary conditions are adequately supportive to growth. At the same time, we must not forget to chart a course towards the country’s long-term economic development. As the Thai economy is in need to upgrade growth potentials and increase competitiveness, the Bank of Thailand will contribute to this process of economic transformation by taking a proactive role in the financial sector development policy. Ongoing in this sphere, there are at least three development plans under implementation, namely, the Financial Sector Master Plan, the Payment Systems Roadmap, and the Capital Account Liberalization Master Plan. Although the three plans have different objectives, they complement each other and together form a strong foundation for the country’s financial sector development. I will highlight a few key elements we hope to get out of these plans. The first one is the Financial Sector Master Plan (FSMP) Phase III. Approved by the Cabinet in March this year to set out strategic directions for the next five years (2016 – 2020), FSMP III is aimed to promote a competitive Thai financial sector, to support more diverse needs at fair and undistorted prices, as well as promote regional trades and investments, with proper supervision to ensure macroeconomic and financial stability. In short, this plan’s motto is to promote a “competitive, inclusive, connected, and sustainable” financial system.