samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Manufacturing in particular was supported by a surge in the production of pharmaceutical ingredients and biological products. The electronics industry also did better than expected. The modern services cluster – comprising financial, ICT, and professional services – was also less affected. The financial services sector in particular has done reasonably well in the face of the pandemic. I will touch on this later in my remarks. All in, the Singapore economy will experience a full-year contraction in 2020, with GDP growth projected at –7 to –4%. The 12% of the economy that is worst-hit—construction, travel-related, and consumerfacing domestic services—will take time to recover. While we may see strong positive sequential growth in the second half of this year for those activities, it will not be sufficient to restore activity to pre-crisis levels. The performance of the trade-related sector will be dampened by weak external demand and continued small frictions in global supply chains, but headline manufacturing output is likely to be supported by strong demand for pharmaceutical products. Growth in modern services, on the other hand, is likely to moderate in the second half alongside the pullback in business activity. Both Core Inflation and CPI-All Items inflation are expected to turn negative, averaging between −1 and 0% this year. External inflation and global oil prices will remain low, notwithstanding some upward pressure on imported food prices due to supply disruptions.

To support banks’ capacity to lend, MAS has implemented transitional measures till endSeptember 2021: Allowing banks to recognise 100% of regulatory loss allowance reserves as Tier 2 capital; and Reducing from 50% to 25% the amount of stable funding that banks must maintain on loans to individuals and businesses maturing in less than six months. MAS also provided guidance to financial institutions on estimating their loan loss allowances in the context of COVID-19: That in assessing COVID-19’s impact on future economic conditions, financial institutions should consider the government’s support measures in bolstering economic resilience; and That financial institutions need not maintain higher loan loss allowances solely because 8 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  COVID-19 relief measures were applied to certain loans. MAS provided room for insurance companies to rebalance their investment portfolios in the face of uncertainties in financial markets: By extending to end-2021 the transitional measure in the calculation of their financial resources under RBC 2. OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS  The financial sector has been operationally resilient, functioning with minimal disruption in the face of COVID-19. The financial industry has maintained a high level of customer service throughout the Circuit Breaker period, as well as Phases One and Two of the re-opening. They have also continued to seamlessly conduct their wholesale and international businesses. The industry’s operational resilience reflects sound business continuity planning and agile adjustments to work processes.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  •  If the sector continues to grow twice as fast as the economy over the next five years – not easy but we aim to – financial services will make up 14% of the economy in 2020, compared to 11% in 2010. Now, the bad news. The financial sector is inherently vulnerable to risk and volatility. •  As crisis after crisis has shown, problems in the financial sector quickly become problems for the entire economy. •  The Global Financial Crisis imposed a tremendous cost with the global economy estimated to have lost 5 percentage points of growth between 2007 and 2009, not to mention the human dimension in jobs lost and companies closed. •  As an international financial centre – connected to the global network of financial flows and playing host to hundreds of foreign financial institutions – Singapore is particularly vulnerable to contagion and shocks from abroad. The global financial industry is facing unprecedented headwinds. •  We are looking at a prolonged period of low growth and low interest rates – a combination that spells reduced earnings and increased risks for most financial institutions. •  The regulatory and compliance burden has increased significantly, following wideranging regulatory reforms in the wake of the global financial crisis. •  The reforms were necessary to help make global finance safer; but their cumulative effects do pose a challenge for the profitability of financial institutions, especially banks. •  Unprofitable banks are not necessarily safe banks.

In particular, stricter discipline is observed in Switzerland in terms of compliance with credit conditions, and price swings have been considerably less extreme. Moreover, there is no evidence to date of any upsurge in speculative trends on the Swiss property market. At present, neither a general property bubble nor any general mortgage problem could probably be said to exist. Although the banks have largely drawn the correct conclusions from the real estate crisis of the 1990s with regard to lending in Switzerland, it is still essential – given the losses on the US real estate market – to carefully assess risks when granting loans (including mortgages) in Switzerland too. BIS Review 150/2007  1
Let me emphasize that under this policy proposal, core inflation reaching 3 percent is only a risk – and not a certainty. Indeed, simulations of standard models suggest that core inflation is likely to remain below 3 percent even under a policy of extended monetary accommodation. But the economy may behave differently than expected. Still, 3 percent inflation is a risk that we should be willing to accept. If, contrary to most evidence, the natural rate of unemployment is higher than 7 percent, then under this policy inflation will rise more quickly and without any improvements to the real side of the economy. In such an adverse situation, the inflation safeguard triggers an exit from what would be evidently excessive policy accommodation. And it would do so before inflation expectations would be in much danger of becoming unhinged. We would not have the desired reductions in unemployment, but then again, there wouldn’t be anything that monetary policy could do about it. We would suffer some policy loss in that a 3 percent inflation rate is above our 2 percent target. But we certainly have experienced inflation rates near 3 percent in the recent past and have weathered them well. And 3 percent won’t unhinge long-run inflation expectations. We are not talking about anything close to the debilitating higher inflation rates we saw in the 1970s or 1980s. Most importantly, we would also know that we had made our best effort.

Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, 1971, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7
Attempts to attenuate the financial stability risks from this broad property price boom with targeted macroprudential measures resulted in a large number of measures being applied, even including LTV restrictions on stand-alone car parking spaces, to which the boom had spread. •  If loose monetary policy can lead to a build up of financial stability risks, then the converse must also be true – tighter monetary policy can be used as a means of reducing financial stability risks. Most empirical estimates show that a temporary tightening of monetary policy can be expected to reduce real debt levels – and  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  hence the probability of crisis – by discouraging households and firms from increasing leverage in the medium term, even if the transmission (through reduced aggregate demand and a higher interest burden) involves a short-run move in the opposite direction (for example, Goodhart and Hofman (2008)). •  This was recognised in the design of the UK Monetary Policy Committee’s 2013 guidance that it intended to maintain a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy until economic slack had been substantially reduced. Recognising the financial stability risks that could emanate from a commitment to maintain low interest rates, the MPC set a “knockout” whereby their guidance would cease to hold if the Financial Policy Committee judged that the stance of monetary policy poses a significant threat to financial stability that could not be contained by the combination of macro and micro prudential policy tools available.

With these few words, Mr Chairman, I would like to urge you, the participants, to be interactive in your discussions as this is one of the ways the workshop would add value to your knowledge and skills. I wish you fruitful discussions as you share your valuable experiences in macroeconomic analysis and modelling in support of Millennium Development Goals. I thank you for your attention. BIS Review 123/2007  3
It can also be said that Turkey is the only country in the region with the necessary institutional structure and capacity for integrating the region to the world economy through business association networks and partnerships.6 In addition to this, in terms of the EU’s long-term energy policy including petrol, natural gas and water sources, the increasing importance of the Middle East and Caspian Region has made Turkey a bridge to the energy sources in the region. With this strategic location, it is in the geo-strategic interest of the EU to have Turkey as a member with regard to the foreign and security policies dimensions. And, I believe that the Turkish accession will be a strategic opportunity for Europe. Distinguished guests, Despite the improvements in the Turkish economy, it is obvious that at the present stage Turkey has lower income per capita compared to the new members and acceding countries. However, we know that income per capita of the new members and acceding countries when they started negotiations was similar to that of Turkey. Actually, decomposing the equation of income per capita, we see that it is a product of productivity, employment rate, inverse of the dependency ratio7 and participation rate.8 In other words, increase in income per capita can be accelerated by productivity growth, increase in employment and labour participation rate and decelerated by increase in the dependency ratio. I will  6  Sak, G. (2005). "EU-Turkey Relations: Time for Contemplation? Time for Reality Check?” Berlin.

The Turkish accession today would imply an increase of more than 17 percent in the EU population. Indeed, between 1990-2003, the average population growth rate and the birth rate Turkey have been 1.8 percent and 2.3 percent per annum respectively.15 The Turkish population is expected to stay young in the foreseeable future. Whereas in the 2000 s, the EU-15 has 0.3 percent of population growth rate and 1.1 percent of birth rate on average at highly decreasing trends.16 According to certain estimations, in the year 2020, the average age in the EU-15 will be 43, while it will be 33 in Turkey17. This means that in the future, Europe will probably be experiencing labour shortages rather than the unemployment problems of today18. What this argument implies that Turkey s young and expanding population will reduce the negative impact of the EU s aging and diminishing work force in the coming 15-20 years. Turkey with a young population would be an important asset in the long-term in competing with countries such as China, India and the US. As another variable in the equation, we observe an advantageous position for Turkey regarding the dependency ratio. As a result of a young and growing population, the dependency ratio of the Turkish population is in a decreasing trend. As of the year 2000, the share of the age group of 55 and above in total population is 29 percent in the EU-15 while that of Turkey is a mere 11 percent19.
There is even an element of “new economy” in the deregulation of the telecommunications and electricity markets. Firstly, it would not have been so easy to implement the deregulation without the aid of the new technology. Secondly, the deregulation might not have had the same impact without, for instance, the information provided on the internet, which helped consumers in making a choice. 7  BIS Review 89/2000  All in all, I can allow myself to make a qualified guess on some areas, without knowing for certain: 1. Productivity, total factor productivity, has risen considerably in Sweden during the latter half of the 1990s. The emergence of information technology has probably been significant in this. 2. The effects will continue to be felt for a number of years, probably beyond the monetary policy horizon, for which reason the Riksbank will continue to monitor the IT phenomenon in future. 3. Deregulation and increased competition play a special role in Sweden, particularly as they have run parallel to IT developments. At the same time, there is reason to point out that the “new economy” does not constitute a guarantee for a stable and positive development in asset prices, either in the USA or Sweden. On the contrary, history shows that rapid technological changes often lead to speculative bubbles.

Increasing demand of analysts, decision-makers, market agents and the broad public for timely economic information and the ability of these indicators to hint business cycle turning points, have made them very common and useful. The peculiarity of these indicators is that they reveal information on the tendency of various economy indicators, based on qualitative opinions of businesses and consumers. The Bank of Albania has been working for several years to construct these indicators, based on the results from large-scale surveys conducted with 720 businesses and 1200 consumers. The cooperation with global leaders in this area has been very efficient. Experts from the German Institute of Economic Studies have supported the process of methodological and economic analysis of business confidence indicators. While working for this project, Bank of Albania’s experts have studied and applied important aspects of contemporary methodologies followed by the OECD countries and by the European Commission. Until coming to the decision to publish them, researches and tests have been constantly carried out on the developments, suggested by these indicators and later on verified by the statistics of the INSTAT. The compliance degree of the tendencies from both sources is assessed as statistically significant, thus making them useful. Various methodologies and empirical findings have been introduced in technical round tables, and in working papers and articles compiled by the Bank’s experts. For more than four years, the results revealed by these indicators have been more and more taken into consideration by Bank of Albania’s decision-making, thus contributing to the building of inflation expectations indicator.
There will be no additional criteria but neither will there be a relaxation of the criteria that proved effective in steering the process of convergence across the founding members of the euro area. Conclusion Let me underline four points which, I trust, are of the essence in the present situation : First, I would like to stress the remarkable credibility of the euro and of the Central Bank that issues this currency, the European Central Bank. Neither the ECB nor the Euro existed six and a half years ago! Today we have a currency which is as stable as were the best national currencies in Europe, and a Central Bank which is as credible as were the most credible Central Banks in Europe and in the world. Our duty is to fully preserve and enhance this exceptional level of credibility and I am, as President, fully committed to this task. Let me in this respect pay homage today to Finn Kydland and to Edward Prescott, who were awarded yesterday the Nobel Prize in Economics. Their seminal work - as regards central banking - on the importance of time consistency, commitment in advance, and full independence and credibility in the delivery of price stability over time has been very important for institutional developments around the world, including the ECB and the Eurosystem, and instrumental in our success. We owe them a particular debt of gratitude. Second, price stability is a necessary condition to obtain sustainable growth and job creation. It is not, alone, a sufficient condition.

This helps identify areas where there is an apparent mismatch - for example where a particular business line is assessed as “high” risk but the risk control is assessed as “weak”. Appropriate follow-up action would then be conducted. I’ve gone into quite a lot of detail on this to make the point that the dialogue between the banks and supervisor in Hong Kong already currently focuses on the full range of risks, even though only a small sub-set of these risks are currently addressed in the capital framework. So, as I said before, Hong Kong is quite well advanced in this area. As time goes on, however, we would expect to see the banks themselves doing more of this analysis and the supervisors less. Indeed, in time we would expect at least the larger banks to have a fairly well-developed process for assessing all the risks inherent in their business, the quality of the management of these risks, and ultimately how much capital they need to hold in respect of these risks. The second area I mentioned in which we can expect to see some developments is the increased used of quantitative techniques, including modelling and stress-testing. Again, this is something that is already happening, but is something to which Basel II will give added impetus. The most obvious area for this, of course, is credit risk, where we can expect to see banks making greater use of credit scoring models, and in particular models to estimate probability of default.
Overall, controlling the borrowing in the domestic money market, expanding the Government securities investment base and stabilising the risk premia in the economy create grounds for a better functioning of transmission channels in the future. Therefore, the Bank of Albania believes that the longterm public debt sustainability and public borrowing constraint in the domestic money market help enhance the monetary policy effectiveness and increase the space for the private sector credit of the economy. Monetary indicators were characterised by slowing growth rates in the second half of the year. They signal low monetary inflation pressures on the economy. The annual monetary supply growth averaged 5.9% in October and November, supported primarily by developments in the external sector of the economy. Money demand by the domestic agents of the economy was low. The increase in households’ participation in public debt securities was reflected in lower financing of this sector by the banking system. Businesses’ and households’ demand for funding decelerated significantly, reflecting the low demand for consumption and investments. Also, banks continued to pursue a more prudential approach in lending, applying tight standards in response to uncertainties perceived at sector level and the economy. Responding to them, annual growth of credit to economy reached 4% in November. Credit to economy was based on the 18% increase in ALL-denominated loans, against the 3.2% decline in foreign currency-denominated loans. Also, credit growth continued to be driven by increase in business loans, while consumer loans and home loans appeared rather low.

The European Commission and the European Investment Fund (part of the European Investment Bank Group) have launched the ”BlueInvest Fund” available for the “blue” economic activities. The funds are aimed at companies that develop solutions for renewable energy and “blue” biotechnology, among others. I will conclude my brief opening speech on a special, more personal note. Dear Mr. McDowell, this summer you will complete your tenure as Vice President of the European Investment Bank. On behalf of the Board of Directors of the National Bank of Romania, allow me to express our gratitude and highest regards for your activity during your mandate. Please accept the expression of genuine appreciation for your commitment, your dedication and your leadership, which have led to remarkable results in investments in the Romanian economy. We wish you all the best possible outcomes for all your future endeavours. I now invite Gyorgy Attila, State Secretary at the Ministry of Public Finance to take the floor. 1 1 NBR Annual Report 2018, pages 21 – 26  2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
What I would like to do in the next ten minutes or so is to give you an overview of the current landscape of Islamic finance in Hong Kong from the perspective of both a financial regulator and a market facilitator, and tell you about how we could help promote this initiative from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) point of view. Why does Hong Kong wish to develop Islamic finance? First, allow me to share with you some thoughts in how we see the relevance of Hong Kong to the development of Islamic finance in Asia. From its early phase of development in the 1980’s, Islamic finance has grown tremendously and undergone a rapid transformation in less than two decades. Today, it has gained widespread recognition, not just among investors of the Muslim faith, but also among other investors who see Islamic finance as a new investment alternative. Islamic finance is therefore no longer characterised by its uniqueness, but rather seen as an integral part of the international financial system. This brings remarkable opportunities for Hong Kong, as a frontrunner in international finance, which possesses key strengths in financial intermediation on an international scale to bring together investors and fund raisers from different parts of the world. With that we see great potential for Hong Kong to take on the intermediary role for Islamic financial products, just as it currently does for conventional products to a high degree of sophistication across all asset classes.

Third, we are working hard to forge closer international links through co-operation with Islamic finance centres and organisations. Establishing business links is particularly important in face of the challenges brought by the integration of Islamic finance with the international financial system. In this regard, I am pleased to mention that Hong Kong has formed a working group with the Dubai International Financial Centre Authority to promote the mutual development of Islamic finance and financial market infrastructure. Closing remarks In closing, I would like to point you to an analogy often made between the rise of Islamic finance and the renaissance of the Silk Road. Let’s remember the Silk Road, in ancient times, was China’s link to the outside world and a route for trade and exchange of art, music, culture and religion. Today, Hong Kong is right at the heart of the New Silk Road, standing astride East and the West, and providing a gateway to business and financial opportunities. We have already painted a picture of how the financial regulators and industry associations will strive to promote the development of Islamic finance in Hong Kong, and we hope very much that the enormous forces of the market will make the New Silk Road as prosperous and significant as the old one. Thank you very much. 4  BIS Review 59/2008