These timely, coordinated and comprehensive set of measures, were ultimately aimed both at containing the adverse economic impact and at preserving monetary and financial stability, as a precondition for the future recovery of the economy. I believe we got the balance right. So far, Albania managed to avoid both a spike in unemployment and major business failures, despite the financial difficulties they faced. Furthermore, our financial system remains solid, with little volatility across financial markets, low lending rates, a stable exchange rate, and a liquid and well capitalized banking sector. Just as importantly, our stress-tests indicate the banking sector’s resilience to additional shocks. Under these premises, I believe the Albanian economy enjoys sufficient preconditions for a gradual recovery. However, challenges remain. For the remainder of my speech, I would like to briefly share with you our perspective on them. *** Ladies and Gentlemen, While most baseline economic projection scenarios remain positive, it’s clear the ongoing global recovery remains fragile. Policy challenges still present, both in the short and in the mid to long run. The first challenge is to ensure the sustainability of the ongoing recovery and to safeguard it against downside risks, such as potential second lockdown. At the Bank of Albania we believe the overall policy stance should remain accommodative over the foreseeable future. Any policy normalization should be coordinated and data-dependent. A coordinated normalization means an ideal sequencing of macroprudential policy stance first, followed by fiscal and monetary policy later.

Old-style central bank balance-sheet expansion coupled to ever higher risk-taking, operations that were considered unthinkable until a decade ago, have become almost a 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  mainstream instruments. The pandemic has tested the resilience of the Albanian economy and of our banking system. It has put an immense social and financial strain on households and businesses and has forced the authorities to act swiftly to address the health crisis and to introduce major policy initiatives in order to contain its impact. The Bank of Albania has used a wide range of policies to support financial activity and aggregate demand. We reduced the policy rate to a historical low of 0.5% and increased the amount of liquidity injected into the system. These actions were aimed at reducing the debt servicing costs across the economy and at supporting continued financial intermediation. In addition, in close consultation with the banking industry, we applied targeted – though temporary – regulatory reliefs, designed to encourage both the temporary deferral of loan installments and the consensual restructuring of loans for borrowers in difficulties, but with sound business prospects. Finally, we took both macro and micro prudential measures in order to strengthen the banks’ balance sheets and preserve their lending capacity. On the fiscal side, the Albanian government delivered fiscal accommodation through: Allocating additional funds to support the health sector; Increasing social transfers to compensate for the households’ loss of income; Offering temporary tax relief to businesses and introducing sovereign credit guarantee schemes to improve their access to finance.