samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Mugur Isărescu: Strengthening supervision, corporate governance and risk management in the financial sector of the Republic of Moldova Speech by Mr Mugur Isărescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania,at the event for the launching of the Twinning project “Strengthening supervision, corporate governance and risk management in the financial sector of the Republic of Moldova”, Bucharest, 18 January 2022. * * * Esteemed President of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, Dear Governor Armașu, Your Excellency, Ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of Moldova, Dear President of the Central Bank of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mr. Klaas Knot, Dear President of the Board of the Central Bank of Lithuania, Mr. Gediminas Šimkus, Mr. Vice-President of the Administrative Board of the National Commission for Financial Markets of the Republic of Moldova, Ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to address the audience today, not only as Governor of the NBR, but also as a long-trusted and close partner of the National Bank of Moldova. Looking back, I am pleased to see the progress made in the last decades by the Republic of Moldova, on its path towards a banking and financial system at international and European standards. The modernisation of the banking and financial system of the Republic of Moldova is, ultimately, to the benefit of the society and citizens. Ever since 1991, Romania and the NBR have supported the Republic of Moldova and the National Bank of Moldova.

Assistant Governor’s Welcoming Remarks at the Signing of the First ESG Islamic Repurchasing Agreement Speaker: Encik Adnan Zaylani Mohamad Zahid / Venue: IBFIM Kuala Lumpur / Language: English / Speech/Interview Date: 17 Jun 2022 /  Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Assalamualaikum w.b.t and a very good afternoon. Malaysia has been ranked first among 135 countries in the Global Islamic Finance Development Indicator and first among 81 in the Global Islamic Economy Indicator, both for the 9th year running, something we are all proud of. The Financial Sector Blueprint 2022 – 2026 sets out BNM's development priorities for the financial sector over the next five years. One of the thrusts is to “Advance value-based finance through Islamic finance leadership” aimed at spurring growth that is progressive, sustainable and inclusive. This includes strengthening Malaysia’s proposition as an international gateway for Islamic finance, augmenting the Malaysia International Islamic Financial Centre (MIFC) agenda. As part of our effort to raise the bar and catalyse global opportunities, there will be several areas of focus but one that is highly relevant for today is our emphasis and a greater focus on opportunities in sustainable finance. This builds on our pioneering work in VBI, and synergise with our efforts on climate and environmental risks – a key piece of the sustainable finance agenda. The SDGs funding gap of OIC countries is estimated around USD 1 trillion a year, hence represents a major opportunity for us.
In our baseline scenario, we continue to forecast that GDP will gradually regain higher expansion rates, backed by favorable external conditions, the end of the mining investment adjustment, no big macroeconomic mismatches and a clearly expansionary monetary policy stance. This scenario also assumes that fiscal policy will remain on its consolidation path, expressed in the immediate future in the upcoming budget aligned with the Administration’s commitments. All this in a context in which potential growth steadily approaches trend-consistent levels. Accordingly, our projections show no major changes compared to our June estimates. For this year, we foresee that the economy will grow between 1.25% and 1.75% (1% to 1.75% in June). For 2018, we continue to expect growth to pick up, to a range between 2.5% and 3.5%, identical to our June forecast. On the expenditure side, our growth forecast for private consumption is slightly adjusted upward in 2017, considering the rebound of the real wage bill observed so far, the recovery of confidence indicators, the necessary replenishment of durable goods inventories and an appreciation of the real exchange rate. In investment, the downward adjustment of projections for 2017 stems primarily from construction, including the mining, infrastructure and housing components. This latter one because of the high stock of new homes for sale that still persists.

Traveling this road has not been easy. At the outset, the mere idea of granting autonomy to the Bank cast a heavy blanket of doubt, not only because of the novelty of the scheme, but because it was difficult to dissociate its potential benefits in the fight against inflation from the political circumstances of its origin. However, the Bank's actions and its first monetary policy decisions made it possible to enhance the legitimacy of the Bank. This behavior has been extended and deepened over time, largely on the initiative of successive Central Bank boards. The adjustments to the monetary policy framework, increased attention to issues of financial stability, efforts to improve the market 7  orientation of its policy decisions and the adoption, by its own initiative, of higher standards of transparency and accountability are expressions of this. Thus, the capital invested by the Bank in seriousness and commitment to the inflation target and financial stability has contributed enormously to provide spaces of independence to its monetary policy making. At the same time, the institutional autonomy of the Bank has not hindered dialogue and coordination with the Executive, through the Minister of Finance. Nor has this autonomy been translated into greater rigidity, but has provided an institutional arena within which it has been able to adapt, in a timely and flexible way, to new challenges, safeguarding the necessary independence to carry out its work.
The priority in structural reform must be the rapid dissemination of these technological advances throughout society. And yes, because people expect too much from the ECB, if other actors rein in their efforts whenever we take action. We are seeing less of an effort on the public finance side. The ECB made it possible to avoid an outright depression in 2012 and 2013, and even the break-up of the euro. It will pursue an accommodative monetary policy for as long as is necessary. Without giving a date, this timescale is fairly long. It’s a long lasting endeavour. Additional risks have arisen from the slowdown in the emerging countries, risks that are pretty significant for the euro area. There are also downward pressures on prices in the manufacturing sector as a result of surplus output and the very high unemployment level. But monetary policy alone will not solve all the problems. Is the situation in Greece under control now? Discussions are ongoing and are still intensive at the political and technical levels, but the will to succeed is there and the atmosphere of the discussions has improved considerably. It is distinctly more positive than it was at the beginning of the year. A great deal of progress has already been made through these negotiations. Significant reforms have been voted in. The banks will be able to be recapitalised. Nevertheless, the situation remains very fragile in this country. After the debt crisis, isn’t the migration crisis the next threat to European cohesion?

For the renminbi to be considered an option for both exporters and importers to settle their trade obligations in addition to the major currencies. There needs to be an efficient and cost-competitive source of financing in renminbi and a diversified investment avenue. In particular, it is recognised that discernible progress in three areas are needed to be put in place at an early stage to support the use of renminbi, that is, to improve access to renminbi liquidity, to have the supporting infrastructure and framework and to provide information on the use of the renminbi for trade and productive investment transactions. More than three years ago, in early 2009, the Bank entered into a Currency Swap Arrangement (CSA) Agreement with the People’s Bank of China, which was renewed early this year with an expanded amount of Renminbi 180 billion. The objective is to ensure a ready supply of renminbi in the domestic financial markets to meet the demand by businesses. An important piece of the infrastructure that was put in place in 2010 was the provision of direct quotes between renminbi and ringgit in the interbank foreign exchange market on the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS). Efforts were also made to enhance the transparency in the exchange rate between renminbi and ringgit for the trade-related settlement transactions. In March this year, the real time gross settlement system in Malaysia was expanded to include settlement services in renminbi.
Muhammad Al-Jasser: Diversifying sources of finance Remarks by His Excellency Dr Muhammad Al-Jasser, Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), at the Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference, Riyadh, 17 May 2011. *  *  *  Thank you Padraic for inviting me again to this yearly event entitled this time “Diversifying Sources of Finance.” It is a fact that finance and the financial sector have been at the centre of global attention since the financial market crisis in 2008. That crisis involved a temporary breakdown in the credit system which produced a global recession, and this example shows the critical role that finance plays in generating or undermining economic growth. This morning, I would like to address the role of government, including SAMA, in enabling the environment for private enterprises including the SMEs, and then describe the current situation in terms of local and global sources of finance for economic development. I will conclude with some lessons from the recent global financial crisis. The first source of finance is internal to the Saudi economy, and the second is external. Domestically there is credit intermediation by channeling local savings into productive investments. Externally savings are allocated between economies, where Saudi Arabia competes with others for the global pool of savings. 1. Role of government  The government targets investment in social infrastructure (education, health, housing, etc.) to promote the wellbeing of the people, and is also pursuing diversification of the economy to create work opportunities for its young population.

For example, some banks are marketing synthetic ETFs tracking an index which are not collateralised by the underlying investment in the index but by other assets with the return guaranteed by a swap with a counterparty which involves counterparty risk. Some ETFs are offering a leveraged return up to 3x that on the index. The IMF, among others, has expressed its concerns (in the Financial Stability Report April 2011) and pointed out that the computer-driven trading used by these products could lead to another “flash-crash” like that of April 2010. 8. Conclusion  In conclusion, a supportive macro and regulatory environment is critical to attracting domestic and global sources of capital. Saudi Arabia has been going about this process for many years, backed up by a prudent monetary and fiscal track record. We welcome longterm capital inflows in various sectors of the economy to gain mutual benefits from the economic potential of Saudi Arabia. To promote this, the government has adopted an “open door” policy towards foreign capital which has provided excellent returns to FDI investors. Saudi Arabia has opened up the financial sector to foreign financial institutions by granting licenses to foreign commercial & investment banks as well as asset management & insurance companies to optimize the level of competence and coverage in different financial disciplines. In terms of regulation of financial institutions, we will continue with the prudent policy which has served us well in the past.
Capital inflows helped fuel emerging market growth, contributing even more to the uneven global recovery. Looking a bit further ahead, as the recovery solidifies in the advanced economies and inflation risk rises in emerging markets, diminishing growth differentials will diminish, spurring volatility in capital flows. Choppy waters may be ahead. So I’ve given you my view of the current global environment of fluid, if not excess, liquidity. So if excess liquidity is not the main issue, what is? On top of the list we have oil prices, Japan crisis and geopolitical risk in the Middle East and how these risks interact with global fluid liquidity. Which naturally leads me to the next question – what are the global growth scenarios in such a context? BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  In our central scenario or most likely scenario, we see continued global growth. The US and Euro area shows signs of a firmer recovery, amid monetary and fiscal stimuli. Latest data show strong consumption and production. But structural obstacles do remain; for example, unemployment and real estate market issues in the US and sovereign debt problems in the Euro area. The growth prospects of Asian economies remain robust, underpinned by strong fundamentals. However, inflation risk is rising, and fast. On the tragic Japan crisis, our current view is that its impact on the global economy should prove temporary. History suggests that Japan will quickly rebuild and recover. And the main engines of global growth still remain.

In the 1930s, the British economist Lionel Robbins stated that:  1  In Agnar Sandmo (2006): “Samfunnsøkonomi – En idéhistorie (Economics – a history of ideas)”, Universitetsforlaget, p. 224. BIS Review 109/2010  1  “Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources that have alternative uses”. 2 This definition may seem rather abstract – and does not perhaps capture aspects of the subject that are important today. To illustrate the breadth and application of the subject, an alternative may be to list some of the questions that an economist can contribute to elucidating or provide a decision-making basis for. The issues of relevance today may for example include the following:   Is it economically profitable to build a power line through Hardanger? How should we weigh the value of untouched nature against the cost of using alternative power supply systems?   How can CO2 emissions be reduced while minimising the impact on living standards and employment? While engineers have valuable knowledge about the technological aspects, economists can analyse how pricing and taxation can be used to reduce emissions    What are the consequences of increasing oil revenue spending in Norway? Over the past 10–20 years, a theme at the forefront of economic policy debate in Norway has been how fast we should spend petroleum revenues. Both gas and oil are nonrenewable resources and this places the management of these resources in a particular position. How can we ensure that many generations benefit from this wealth?
The Joint Assessments also play a crucial role in identifying the medium-term economic policy priorities and the Accession Partnerships do likewise with regard to the establishment of priorities for EU technical assistance. Following the tremendous efforts of the last few years, we have now arrived at a stage in which there are no less than 12 applications for EU membership currently under consideration, ten of these from transition countries. Moreover six of the 12 have already begun accession negotiations. When addressing the issue of enlargement, we may ask ourselves what exactly should be required of a member state of the European Union and on what criteria should the eligibility of a candidate country be assessed? Of course, these are not usually questions asked of central bankers and it is certainly not my intention to provide answers to them. As I mentioned earlier, central bankers are not politicians. But, fortunately, there is no need for me to provide answers, since these issues have already been addressed within the context of the current enlargement process. I am referring here to the so-called “Copenhagen criteria”. As I am sure you are aware, these criteria were formulated at the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 with a view to defining a level playing field and ensuring the equal treatment of applicant states.

The criteria related to each step of the process should be implemented in a strict and effective manner, in order to provide the countries concerned with the external constraints necessary to bring their economies in line with the respective standards, while at the same time avoiding any discrimination. Of course, against a background of different starting points and varying degrees of economic transition, a plurality of approaches should be feasible without compromising equality of treatment. Indeed, we do not expect the candidate countries to join the EU or to adopt the euro in a single wave. However, irrespective of the individual time frames pursued, what is clear is that the accession process requires a significant amount of preparatory work on the part of all involved. Conclusion It is probably unnecessary for me to remind you that, whatever the Eurosystem’s involvement in the enlargement process, our primary objective is and will continue to be the maintenance of price stability in the euro area. Hence, any arrangements or other forms of cooperation with accession countries must be without prejudice to the Eurosystem’s independence and its primary objective. Nonetheless, I hope that I have conveyed the message that we at the ECB and the Eurosystem at large are also aware of how the wider economic and political environment can have implications for the fulfilment of our tasks and objectives. As central bankers we do not operate in a vacuum and this is certainly the case with regard to the Eurosystem and the prospect of EU enlargement.
We see that as we move further down on the list, fewer countries satisfy the criteria. Based on this approach, Norges Bank is among the five most transparent central banks, as we satisfy every criterion on the “natural order”. The point I will make by showing this is not to win transparency competitions, but to illustrate that transparency has many dimensions, and there is no unique way to measure it. As a general guideline, Norges Bank applies Wim Duisenberg’s definition of transparency: The external communication reflects the internal deliberations. 10 When assessing whether we should publish a given piece of information, we do not ask ourselves if there are any good reasons for publishing it. Instead, we ask ourselves if we have any good reasons for not publishing it. Usually, we find no convincing arguments for not publishing what we find useful in the internal deliberations. An argument often heard against publishing certain information is that the public might misinterpret it or put excessive weight on it. However, the danger of misleading the public by providing additional information could also be seen as an advantage: It forces us to be clear and pedagogic in our communication. Transparency is, however, not just a means to improve the effectiveness of monetary policy and discipline in the internal decision process. We should not forget that transparency is important for democratic accountability. Central banks have gained considerable independence during the last 20 years, and central bank independence is probably an important commitment mechanism for securing price stability.

The stabilising effect of the minimum exchange rate against the euro played a major role in this development, with goods exports declining only slightly in the first quarter, in an international environment that remained weak, while exports of services rose. An improvement in consumer confidence encouraged a substantial increase in private consumer spending. However, GDP growth was also supported by temporary effects. Value added in the banking industry benefited from the optimistic mood on the financial markets during the first months of the year. In manufacturing and the hospitality industry, however, activity declined, underscoring the particularly negative impact of the strong Swiss franc on these industries. For the second quarter, we expect a significant slowdown in GDP growth. Since the global economy is expected to recover slowly, and the value of the Swiss franc is still high, the demand for exports is likely to remain subdued, even in the subsequent period. The high level of uncertainty and the pressure on profit margins are impacting negatively on corporate investment. Only because of the unexpectedly strong winter half-year does the SNB now expect growth of around 1.5% for 2012. Swiss inflation outlook The inflation outlook for Switzerland has remained largely unchanged from the monetary policy assessment in March. Since the fourth quarter of 2011, the annual inflation rate has been in negative territory. This is mainly attributable to a base effect, because last quarter the price level remained almost unchanged from the previous quarter.
Oil prices, which reached historical highs in nominal US dollar terms in the last week of October, are a key factor determining near-term prospects for economic activity and inflation, both globally and in the euro area. As I noted earlier, persistently high and rising oil prices have had a visible direct impact on consumer prices in the euro area, and inflation is likely to remain above the upper limit of our definition of price stability of 2% in the coming months. This is a worrisome development, although there is little indication that medium-term inflationary pressures are building up in the euro area. What would be the potential impact of a sustained rise in oil prices on key macroeconomic variables in quantitative terms? For purely illustrative purposes, and using a variety of macroeconomic models, ECB economists have estimated the potential impact of a hypothetical permanent oil price increase of 50% on both inflation and output. According to these calculations, such an increase would add 0.3 to 0.6 percentage points to overall inflation in the euro area in the first year and 0.1 to 0.4 percentage points in the second year, before petering out in the third year (0.0 to 0.1 percentage points).

Under such circumstances, the central bank’s unambiguous commitment to attaining its objectives is an indispensable anchor. A credible central bank with a clear commitment to price stability can, and must, provide such a haven of trust and confidence within the complex and uncertain web of interrelations in a modern economy. This is precisely what the ECB is seeking to do. Our track record over the past, almost six, years shows that we have been rather successful. Thank you very much for your attention. BIS Review 66/2004  7