samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Singapore can offer Asian borrowers a venue to raise capital, not necessarily in $ by reaching out to Asian-based investors who will be more familiar with their businesses, and will view their risks with less apprehension than investors outside Asia. We recognise that the liquidity of the $ market, and MAS rules to discourage the internationalisation of the $ constrain the growth of the bond market. We are not likely to change our basic stance against $ internationalisation. But we have relaxed the specific restrictions, and will continue to review regularly how much further we can safely go. International bond markets are rapidly moving towards electronic trading, as equity markets have long done. This will tend to concentrate bond trading in a few centres around the world - London, New York, and perhaps one Asian centre. Singapore will contend to be that Asian centre. But trading alone is insufficient to make us a major hub for capital markets in Asia. We must attract and develop expertise in originating and structuring debt issues and products, areas where we have traditionally lagged behind Hong Kong and the more developed markets. Fund management The Government will continue to put out more money for the fund managers to manage. We will also encourage individuals to be more active in managing their own retirement savings. Retirement funds should earn higher returns than the risk-free interest rate offered by the CPF Board. Some have suggested that the CPF should therefore raise its interest rate, but that would be the wrong approach.

As Securities & Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr said recently, “No government agency can protect you from your own foolishness”. Our dot-com mania is much milder, but Singaporeans too are carried along by the general enthusiasm for tech stocks. MPs have already expressed concern about SGX’s more liberal listing rules, because they fear the public does not understand the risks, and may even believe that the government approves of the companies, or else it would not have allowed Singaporeans to invest in them. Much as we hope to prevent the dot-com enthusiasm from getting out of hand, we cannot go back to merit regulation, judging the business merits of IPO candidates. The surest form of investor education is to get burnt. But we hope the lesson, if it comes, will not be too painful. MAS As the regulator, MAS must continue to build up its expertise and new skills, to better understand and recognise the different types and magnitudes of risk faced by financial institutions. This will equip us to assess the adequacy of systems and capabilities set up by financial institutions to manage risk, and to craft appropriate supervisory responses. We seek to regulate with a lighter touch, but a lighter touch does not mean doing less. Risk-focused supervision is more difficult to do than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. It demands much greater understanding of the business and risk profile of the institution and the exercise of judgement as to where dangers may possibly arise.
Let me thank you for your attention and wish you a pleasant weekend and for those who are not Parisians a pleasant journey back home... today or I hope for some of you on Sunday!

The development of High Frequency Trading for instance – whose economic utility is by the way also questionable – could hamper the resilience of financial markets in times of stress. New services such as smart contracts embedded on a blockchain could create new shock transmission mechanisms or result in new forms of interconnectedness or pro-cyclicality that could be the sources of financial instability. Third, it could threaten market integration, especially in Europe after a decade of tremendous efforts to foster harmonization between financial markets. Such efforts are evidenced in the securities markets area, by the recent launch of the Target2 Securities platform in 2015, in the payments area, by the completion in 2016 of the second round of the SEPA project which now allows for fully harmonized credit transfers and direct debits denominated in euros, throughout the European Union. By contrast, the current profusion of new technologies, standards and protocols that are not fully interoperable, at least at this stage, constitutes a potential risk of market fragmentation. Additionally, they could lead to some kind of social fragmentation, if the new payment means are less accessible to the less welloff. 3. Against this background, public authorities play a key role in helping to reap the full benefits of innovation while preventing the threats it brings This implies first rethinking the regulation so as to strike the right balance between innovation and security.
The taxonomy will also pave the way for plans that will be announced soon to mandate the adoption of climate related financial disclosures by financial institutions. In addition, we are supporting efforts by the Government to strengthen the capacity of development finance institutions to enable them to play a more significant role in crowding in sustainable finance from the private sector, supporting the capacity building needs of businesses in transition, and scaling up innovative financing mechanisms. In light of the current challenges faced by businesses and individuals, we see a greater need and significant prospects for new forms of blended finance to support the recovery process and meet transition challenges. To this end, the Bank is engaging with the financial industry, including DFIs, and other key stakeholders on strategies to combine commercial lending with alternative funding sources such as philanthropic funds and social finance instruments. This includes upscaling existing pilot programmes. Such blended finance solutions will be important to reduce debt levels and future risks to growth and financial stability. During this period, the Bank has also established concessionary financing facilities dedicated to help SMEs automate and digitalise their operations. This will enable them to take advantage of new technologies to enhance income streams and build greater resilience. Thirdly, we believe collaborative partnerships will play a larger and more critical role in shaping financial policy going forward.

Jessica Chew Cheng Lian: Opening remarks - World Bank's Sustainable ExchangE Development Series (SEEDS) Opening remarks by Ms Jessica Chew Cheng Lian, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the World Bank's Sustainable ExchangE Development Series (SEEDS), 25 October 2021. * * * Good morning. It is a privilege and pleasure to be a part of this year’s edition of the World Bank’s webinar series on sustainable finance. We are grateful to the World Bank for organising this programme. Learning from our peers continues to be one of the most important and practical ways in which we can help each other effect meaningful change to ensure that finance truly serves our communities. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have now been with us for almost two years. While ambitions to pursue sustainable finance goals started well before the pandemic, the pandemic will surely be remembered as a defining period in shaping the path taken to a more sustainable future. The pandemic has extracted an enormous toll not only on global health, but also on poverty levels and inequality. More vulnerable groups, including those who earn lower incomes, have lower levels of education, or are holding less secure jobs, have borne a disproportionate brunt of the fallout from the pandemic. While policy measures are helping to mitigate these effects in the short term, the longer lasting impact on society and future economic prospects are likely to be far more significant. This could amplify pre-existing inequalities, particularly in emerging economies.
Ardian Fullani: Imagine the future – for a better economic cooperation. Economic chamber’s and bank’s responsibilities Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the 10th Vienna Economic Forum, Vienna, 7 May 2014. *  *  *  Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear colleagues and participants of the Vienna Economic Forum, I am honoured and delighted to return and speak to such a constructive and important economic forum, discussing with you the economic development topics, which affect the present and the future of our economies. The topic of this forum is very important for the economies of the South East Europe. It creates the proper environment, which enables the examination of the problems faced by our economies during the crises. We can certainly draw few lessons from what we have learned during the recent years, following the global economic and financial crises. These discussions and the harmonization of economic policies will help us to project a strong coordinated economic structure for the long term future of our economies. It is particularly important to converge here in Vienna and discus the cooperation issue because one of the obvious outcomes (lessons) of the developments during the recent years is that the economic developments in particular for small open economies of the South East European region, are not local or regional anymore. Just like the flu, it is rather unexceptional and highly transmittable from one economy to the other, from one sector of the economy to the other.

Most importantly, European economies and their financial systems, among which the Austrian financial system enjoys a significant share of the market, define the globalization for the region and are, to a large extent, important determinants for the success or failure of these economies. Given the large share of the European financial groups, they have and will play an important role in the transmission of global shocks in the region. What is more important, they have a significant role in the transmission of legislative and regulative shocks carried over by European monetary and supervisory authorities. The size is such that even a simple change in the future business plans of a single European financial institution can transform into real shocks for the economies of the region. It became evident during the crisis and afterwards that an increase in risk and uncertainty, led to increased incentives for banks to withdraw from the Emerging Europe economies. Though this was mostly prevented due to increased cooperation through institutions such as the Vienna Initiative, the concerns from our perspective have not completely dissipated. In this respect the business plan of EU based groups can play a potentially important role in the nature and outcomes of this cooperation.
CPIF close to 2 per cent at the end of the forecast period With regard to inflation measured in terms of the consumer price index, CPI, future developments will be affected by the rise in interest rates, or rather by the increase in households’ mortgage interest expenditure. This is clearly visible if one looks at the same time at CPIF inflation, which quite simply is CPI inflation with a fixed mortgage rate. The CPIF is thus not directly affected by changes in mortgage rates, which means that these measures differ quite considerably over the coming years, although they approach one another further ahead. Both CPI and CPIF inflation rose in the months prior to the publication of the Monetary Policy Report (Figure 9). This was mainly due to rising energy prices, but also to weak productivity growth and to the previous year’s weaker exchange rate having a delayed impact. However, data published two weeks ago show that both the CPI and the CPIF fell in January. During 2010 CPIF inflation is expected to fall, primarily as a result of companies’ costs falling and the krona strengthening, which is expected to make imports cheaper. The rate of increase in the CPIF will rise from 2012 and onwards as economic activity improves and companies’ costs begin to rise again. At the end of the forecast period, we expect inflation measured in terms of the CPIF to be close to 2 per cent. However, CPI inflation is expected to continue to rise.

With a view to managing such a crisis scenario, Credit Suisse as well as UBS have increased their gone-concern loss-absorbing capacity by issuing further bail-in instruments, which can be converted into equity in the event of impending insolvency. As we explained in our Financial Stability Report published in June, since the ‘too big to fail’ regulations came into force, 1 Final requirements refer to the requirements that will apply after expiry of all transitional provisions, and in particular to the qualitative requirements for going-concern capital. Page 1/3  Berne, 14 December 2017 Fritz Zurbrügg  News conference  Credit Suisse and UBS have also taken important organisational steps to improve their resolvability. Despite these positive developments, the two big banks still need to make further progress if they are to fully comply with the second-pillar requirements. This applies both to their gone-concern loss-absorbing capacity and their resolution planning. Full compliance with all of the ‘too big to fail’ requirements will further strengthen the big banks’ going and gone-concern loss-absorbing capacity as well as improve their resolvability in a crisis. Both of these sets of requirements must be addressed if Switzerland’s ‘too big to fail’ problem is to be solved. Domestically focused banks  I would now like to turn to the domestically focused banks. These institutions’ biggest risks continue to stem from the mortgage and real estate markets. I will make three points in this regard. First, imbalances on the mortgage and real estate markets persist.
Flexible inflation targeting builds a bridge between the long-term objective of monetary policy, which is to keep inflation on target and provide an anchor for inflation expectations, and the more short-term objective of stability in the real economy. Low inflation in recent years is both the result of monetary policy assessments and unforeseen disturbances to the economy. Towards the end of 2002, Norges Bank shifted its monetary stance in an accommodative direction as new information indicated that developments in output and unemployment might be weaker than projected and inflation might be lower than target. The key rate was reduced markedly in 2003 and 2004. The low interest rate level has contributed to a considerable increase in demand for goods and services. Increased petroleum investment and favourable prices in markets for our export products have also made a contribution. So far in this cyclical upturn the mainland economy has expanded by an average of close to 4 per cent. Wage developments reflect and influence the business cycle. Strong employment growth in the 1990s resulted in a rise in labour costs, which in turn had a dampening impact on growth. Moderate wage growth in recent years has been accompanied by a strong cyclical upturn. It appears that wage growth will be somewhat higher in 2006 than in 2005, but not higher than expected. Employment growth was lower over a long period compared with the cyclical upturns in the 1980s and 1990s.

Reports from the regional network indicate that capacity utilisation is high in the construction industry and in manufacturing, particularly among suppliers to the petroleum industry. There were reports of shortages of engineers and project managers. Many of our contact enterprises in corporate services also reported increasing skills shortages. On the other hand, idle capacity is reported in retail trade and in household services. There are limitations to how much the supply of Norwegian labour can increase ahead. Labour participation rates are at a historically high level, particularly when taking into account demographic developments. Developments in the labour market are similar to the profile observed ahead of the period of accelerating wage and cost inflation that started in 1998. Several factors can explain why wage growth has been moderate so far during this cyclical utpurn. An increase in inward labour migration and the opportunities provided by an international labour market may have resulted in greater emphasis on the high wage level in Norway relative to our trading partners. Inward labour migration has also contributed to reducing bottlenecks in some industries. Developments in region North are fairly similar to the situation in the other regions of the country. Region North reported prospects of solid growth in most industries. Manufacturing, retail trade and the local government and hospital sectors expected moderate growth in investment. The service sector expected zero growth in investment. There were reports of moderate employment growth in all sectors, with the exception of the local government and hospital sectors where growth was unchanged.
This last condition effectively represents the dividing line between lender-of-last-resort actions on one hand and capital injections or other forms of unsecured lending on the other hand, a critically important dividing line the Federal Reserve carefully respected in all its actions over the course of the crisis. One lesson that emerges from this and later phases of the crisis is that while the Federal Reserve’s authority and accountability for the 13(3) actions taken in March 2008 and throughout the crisis were well established under the Federal Reserve Act, what was crucially lacking was a public transparency regime that would allow the public to immediately track and understand the details of the extraordinary action taken. The complexity of creating a robust, responsible and safe transparency regime in the midst of rapid change and extreme market fragility notwithstanding, the fact that the public transparency of the central bank might lag the actions being taken by the central bank creates its own set of risks. In fact, the importance of transparency keeping pace with actions was actually the main theme of Greenspan’s 1996 speech, where, just as an aside, he had coined the phrase irrational exuberance. One paragraph in particular seems particularly prescient: “If we are to maintain the confidence of the American people, it is vitally important that, excepting the certain areas where the premature release of information could frustrate our legislated mission, the Fed must be as transparent as any agency of government.

Opportunities that not only profit businesses, but that enable private enterprise to help solve real world problems confronting society today – including poverty, climate change and growing inequality. As you can imagine, worrying about risks is in the DNA of central banks given our mandates to promote monetary and financial stability. So the idea of innovative risk management itself would typically set off alarm bells within the Bank, and probably among a number of you in this room. But in reality, we are living in a world where exceptional conditions exist. Monetary and financial 1/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  conditions that prevailed since the Global Financial Crisis have increased financial risks. Thanks to globalisation, regulatory and political developments have a far wider international reach. And social media that has become deeply ingrained in our daily lives has led to a world described in the latest Global Risk Report by the World Economic Forum as “a world without common facts and objective truth”. Innovative risk management is therefore not just about allowing businesses to take on more risks in a responsible way. It is as much about strengthening our defences against new and emerging risks. And perhaps, most importantly, it is about providing businesses with the confidence to move beyond the present to embrace and build a better future. For many organisations, current approaches to risk management are likely to be already severely deficient in this new environment.
Jan. 14  Jul. Jan.  Jul. 15  Sources: Bloomberg and Bank calculations. (a) Average across the 50 largest equity and fixed income ETFs globally by assets. 13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  13

The continuation of a strong demand trend can be expected to render resource utilisation in general and in the labour market in particular increasingly strained. On the other hand, inflation is still low and the prospects to date in this respect appear to be balanced. So there are not all that many signs at present of resource utilisation becoming excessively strained. Accordingly, it seems that there is ground to believe that the Swedish economy is functioning better than before. 3  BIS Review 41/2000
I believe that the three following core activities of central banks can have a substantial impact on the environment for doing business: maintaining price stability, maintaining a safe and efficient payment system, and supporting the development of the financial sector. 2. Price stability  Let us first consider price stability. Low and stable inflation rates allow the private sector to plan for the future, lead to a lower need for costly price adjustments, prevent tax distortions  BIS Review 110/2007  1  and thus create a stable business environment. On the other side, high and unstable inflation creates random wealth transfers between creditors and debtors. Since their fiscal base is weak, governments in Africa have often relied on seignorage to improve their income stream, creating high inflation rates as a by product. How has inflation developed throughout the continent in recent years? Figure 1 depicts inflation in Africa from 1990 to 2005. It displays inflation in South Africa, as well as the median inflation rates in 39 other sub-Saharan economies and in 5 North African economies. I focus on the median inflation rate because this measure is not sensitive to large outliers such as Zimbabwe. As you can see, inflation in Africa has trended downward over the past 15 years, with the exception being the aftermath of the Tequila crisis in 94/95. In South Africa and northern Africa inflation is now well below 5%, while sub-Saharan Africa also displays single digit inflation rate.

By the same token, let me stress the relevance of the Investment Survey conducted annually by the European Investment Bank since 2016, whose most recent results for Spain have been presented at this conference. This survey contributes to improving our knowledge of the dynamics of firms’ investment and investment finance. In particular, this source of information has proved very useful in identifying the main obstacles to investment. The high coverage of European firms in different countries allows for comparison of investment and investment finance developments across countries. In the context of the pandemic, the results of this survey are even more relevant since they allow us to better understand the implications of the COVID-19 shock for firms’ investment across Europe. To conclude, let me thank the European Investment Bank for partnering us in the organisation of this conference and, more in general, for their very good collaboration with us. I would also like to thank speakers and participants at the conference for such fruitful discussions. I’m convinced these debates are very useful for enriching our understanding of economic problems and for guiding policy makers as to the best possible design of economic policies to tackle them. Thank you. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches