samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Zambia’s irrigation potential is estimated at more than 500,000 hectares while only about 40,000 hectares are irrigated despite the country having abundant water resources. Increased yields in agricultural products like maize, rice and wheat, requires inputs such as fertilizers, irrigation water and proper roads to enable the harvested crops to be transported to the main markets and to prevent crop losses. 3.3  Energy (electricity)  Abundant investment opportunities exist in the energy sector in view of the huge power deficits in Southern Africa and Zambia’s potential for more hydro-power generation plants. Due to vast water resources and coal reserves, Zambia is ideal for the provision of hydroelectric power. Although most of the electricity is supplied from major hydro stations, there are also small diesel power stations in rural areas. There are plans to develop a 600-megawatt hydroelectric generation plant on the Kafue River. Currently, the development of Itezhi-Tezhi Hydro Electric Project; Kafue Gorge Lower Hydro-Electric Project; ZambiaTanzania Interconnector; and Zambia-Namibia Interconnector are underway. However, there is still potential for more power generation capacity for the private sector to invest in. Apart from the mining sector that provides a huge demand for power in the country, there is a huge demand for power in the SADC region as well as the Eastern African bloc. The expected rise of the manufacturing sector will also increase demand for power in the country. Opportunities also exist in alternative sources of power such as solar energy and gas energy for domestic cookers.

In the main urban centres, public telephones and independently operated cellular telephone networks are in place. Zambia also hosts ZamNet and other internet service providers. In order to continue diversifying our export base and further increase our export earnings, it is imperative that we intensify use of marketing strategies that take advantage of the fact that globalisation requires each country to develop more efficient modes of communication. Therefore, inadequate infrastructure, institutional capacity and investment in skilled human resources should continue to be aggressively addressed by targeting identified weak areas, and implement policies to tackle the weaknesses speedily so as to enhance economic growth and developments prospects. In addressing these issues, it is crucial to build strong partnerships, particularly with the private sector, for effective Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development in Zambia. The agriculture sector however, remains one of the key areas where advancements in ICTs have not yet been fully taken advantage of in order to benefit rural communities and the economy in general. In fact, communications infrastructure has been either lacking or inadequate in most rural areas of Zambia to give an opportunity to rural communities to access and distribute information at low cost, as well as facilitate interactive participation in the creation and use of agricultural information.
4  Tier 1 capital is taken to be capital intended to ensure operational continuity. This capital enables a bank to pursue its activities and maintain its solvency. The highest-quality tier 1 capital is called common equity tier 1 (CET1). Tier 2 capital is considered to be capital intended to absorb losses in the event of liquidation. This capital allows a bank to reimburse depositors and preferential creditors in the event of its insolvency. 7  In short, when a macroprudential capital buffer is activated or increased, banks5 might consider the following options to comply with these new requirements: a) increase the net interest income arising on customer charges, generate more profits and retain a portion of them; b) maintain profits, but reduce dividend payments; c) issue new shares and raise additional funds, or d) reduce risk-weighted assets. The first three alternatives would tend to exert upward pressure on the interest rates on loans granted by banks. These higher interest rates mean that fund-seekers will resort to a lesser extent to financing in their spending decisions, whereby the volume of lending and, therefore, the risks borne by the financial system will diminish. Moreover, this increase in interest rates will reduce household consumption, and firms will also invest less, which will further reduce the demand for credit. In parallel, real and financial asset prices will adjust downwards, reducing the value of the collateral for credit transactions.

Although TALF is off to a relatively slow start – hurt, in part, by the reluctance of some investors to participate because of worries about the potential implications for them of the TARP funding that is involved in the TALF program, it has helped to restart the securitization markets in the consumer asset-backed securities area and has brought down funding costs for consumer ABS issuers. The third goal of these policy interventions has been to improve market function. By dramatically reducing rollover risk, the Federal Reserve’s willingness to serve as the lender or investor of last resort has helped improve market function in a broad number of areas. Rollover risk is the risk that a borrower may not be able to obtain new funding in order to repay an investor when the investor needs the funds for other uses. If rollover risk is high, the investor is going to be concerned about getting its funds back and, thus, may be unwilling to make the investment in the first place. The impact of the Fed’s intervention on rollover risk has been especially important in the triparty repo market and in the commercial paper market. The triparty repo market is a market in which investors such as money market mutual funds lend funds, mostly on an overnight basis, to securities dealers, with the loans collateralized by high-quality securities. During the crisis, this market became less stable.
In addition, corporations or organisations in this new environment can no longer function by departments or sections, but as an integrated organisation. This also requires new governance arrangements. For an economy or a financial system, we have seen how a crisis in one segment was thought to be confined, but it had pervasive consequences on the entire financial system and the economy. Sixth, is that despite the increased connectivity of the world, as exemplified by the swift spread of the financial crisis and economic shocks throughout the global economy and international financial system in 2008, the institutional arrangements for the cross-border dimension of policy-making have yet to reach the levels commensurate with the degree of economic and financial integration in the world. Finally, the response to the crisis needs to be comprehensive. While addressing the weaknesses and lapses is important, equally important is the enabling environment for the measures to yield results. Pro-growth policies are vital for this purpose. During the Asian financial crisis, Malaysia gave equal attention to financial sector resolution to restore the financial intermediation process and thus credit supply. Equally emphasis was placed on addressing the problems of borrowers. Debt restructuring and mechanisms for support were put in place for the corporate sector, small and medium-scale enterprises and the household sector. This supported growth of the economy and at a fraction of the cost of the financial sector resolution.

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Big shift – traversing the complexities of a new world Luncheon address by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Khazanah Megatrends Forum 2012: “Big shift – traversing the complexities of a new world”, Kuala Lumpur, 2 October 2012. *  *  *  The global economy has now entered into a period of slower economic growth despite the significant and wide ranging pro-growth policies that have been implemented across the world. Why then has the world not been able to achieve a sustained long-lasting recovery? What has been holding back this prospect? In addition, the rapid and significant changes in the global environment have also brought with them new demands and new challenges. Our understanding of the factors that are containing the global growth prospects and the consequence of the new environment will better position us to face the fundamentally new landscape and to manage its consequent challenges. Let me first thank Khazanah for the invitation to speak at this Khazanah Megatrends Forum. The topic on the Big Shift that is being experienced in the world today is indeed highly relevant. While the international and national attention is currently focused on the immediate challenges of the global environment, equally important, however, is to recognise the long-term changes that will reshape our future. The first part of my remarks today will focus on the immediate challenges of the global economy, taking into account the fundamental factors that are likely to affect the growth outlook.
When money was abundant, even debt of poor quality or uncertain value could be refinanced easily. This was especially the case since the quality of this debt was artificially boosted by a favourable rating and an insurance guarantee. With the first defaults on subprime loans, all of  BIS Review 130/2008  1  these protections quickly fell apart. Liquidity – and this is one of its characteristics – dried up much more quickly than it had appeared. There was a flood of rating downgrades by agencies, which occurred at a speed and above all suddenness that nothing, in the metrics or methodology used, could have suggested. Lastly, it quickly emerged that the capital of monoline insurers was highly insufficient to enable them to honour the commitments they had entered into. It then became apparent that, far from being spread across the whole system, credit risk was implicitly or explicitly concentrated in the hands of specific institutions, foremost among which were the major investment banks. Hence the successive waves of depreciations of structured products, imposed by the accounting rules in force, with these depreciations in turn fuelling doubts about banks’ solvency, liquidity constraints and further falls in asset prices. This negative spiral is still continuing today. The collapse of structured securitisation has highlighted a fundamental reality. To a great extent, the financial innovation of the past few years has served not to manage and spread risk better, but to increase the volume of credit per unit of capital, referred to as leverage.

The latest forecasts by the IMF envisage for the euro zone, and even more for France, a rebound in growth in the second half of 2009 [respectively +0.6% and +0.8% in 2009Q4 / 2008Q4]. As regards inflation in 2009, the IMF is forecasting 1.9% and 1.6% for the euro area and France respectively. This is not the dark scenario that some people are predicting. Moreover, the IMF forecasts are based on the rather pessimistic hypothesis of oil prices 30% higher than at present and do not factor in the action plans announced over the last ten days. The outlook for financial regulation The crisis has highlighted the need to take a fresh look at the foundations of financial system regulations and has rekindled concerns about the structure of their supervision. At the French President’s instigation, Europeans are calling for the creation of a new “Bretton Woods”, to establish a new international financial order. I believe it would be useful to revisit the foundations of our financial regulation. This must be done without haste, but no stone should be left unturned. Improved regulation appears to be necessary in several domains, from rating agencies to risk management, the organisation of financial markets and even the question of remuneration. As a contribution to this ambitious debate, I would like to make two sets of remarks. One involves the fluctuations of financial systems, the other concerns financial supervision. Financial systems that operate in the framework of a developed market economy are, by nature, subject to cyclical forces.
Norges Bank’s inflation projection is our judgement of the most probable outcome for the rise in the CPI two years ahead. The macroeconomic model RIMINI is a tool that is used in making these 3 projections. Judgement and assessments of current statistics and results from other models are also 3  A further discussion of the use of RIMINI in the work on the inflation projections is provided in: Kjetil Olsen and Fredrik Wulfsberg: “The role of assessments and judgement in the macroeconomic model RIMINI”, Economic Bulletin 2/2001, Norges Bank. BIS Review 7/2002  3  important. In setting the interest rate, however, we also place emphasis on the probability distribution – or the balance of risk – surrounding the projection. Therefore, we also publish our assessment of the risk associated with our own projections. The chart shows our assessment of risk as it was presented in the last Inflation Report, published on 31 October 2001. The black line represents what we consider the most probable development in the CPI. The bulk of the distribution was below the line. This is reflected in the formulation “the probability that inflation two years ahead will be lower than 2½ per cent is greater than the probability that it will be higher.” In order to reduce the possibility of substantial deviations from the inflation target, Norges Bank takes the balance of risks into account when assessing the interest rate. The assessment of the balance of risks largely expresses the Bank’s own judgement.

It is also important to understand financial reporting formats and the auditing standards specified by the external auditors and ensure that there are no conflicting instructions issued by the regulator or the external auditor. This task can also be facilitated through continuous dialogue between the relevant parties and in forums like this, where such issues can be raised and resolved. BIS Review 64/2007  1  Neither the regulator nor the external auditor can ensure that the companies are acting in a transparent and an accountable manner. The boards of directors and the senior management should be accountable to relevant stakeholders. This is why it is necessary to adopt corporate governance practices both at the board level and throughout the operations of the institution. There is an increasing trend of making some of the corporate governance practices mandatory either through rules and regulations issued by the regulator or by separate mandatory codes. From 2009 onwards, all finance and leasing companies will have to observe mandatory governance principles. Therefore, contribution by the boards of directors and the senior management of finance and leasing companies is extremely important as it will facilitate the roles of both regulator and auditor. The role of an auditor under the new Companies Act Given the fiduciary responsibility of finance and leasing companies, it is important to differentiate normal company audits from financial institution audits.
To illustrate this point, I want to focus on three key markets for the SNB that have experienced major changes: the goods and services market, where digitalisation may be influencing pricing and where we, in turn, must remain alert if we are to fully grasp the associated dynamics; the foreign exchange market, where the emergence of new technologies and players has led us to expand our in-house capabilities and redouble our efforts to stay at the cutting edge of technological progress (Thomas Moser, Deputy Head of Department III since 1 September, will give you more detail on this topic); and finally, the money market, where structural changes are prompting us to work on modernising infrastructure and maintaining appropriate framework conditions in order to ensure effective implementation of monetary policy. Evolution of the goods and services market and weak inflation So let me start with the goods and services market and inflation developments. This market is presenting central banks with an important conundrum: why, given that the economy has firmed significantly since 2017, has inflation remained low in most advanced economies? Page 2/9  Two major reasons stand out: on the one hand, monetary policy geared to price stability has firmly anchored inflation expectations; on the other, various structural factors linked to globalisation may have had a moderating effect on prices.

After the crisis, inflation in Switzerland remained subdued due to low oil prices and strong appreciation of the CHF  1  08.11.2018 Ten years after the crisis: evolving markets and the challenges for the SNB | Andréa M. Maechler and Thomas Moser | © Swiss National Bank  The SNB monitors the microstructure of the market in real time using high-frequency data EURCHF exchange rate and order book on 8 February 2018 High  High  Tick time 2  08.11.2018 Ten years after the crisis: evolving markets and the challenges for the SNB | Andréa M. Maechler and Thomas Moser | © Swiss National Bank  Source: SNB. Low  1.160  1.158  1.158  1.156  1.156  1.154  1.154  1.150  1.148  1.152  1.150  1.148  1.146  1.144  1.144  12:00  15:00  18:00  1.142 09:00  12:00  15:00  EURCHF (rhs) 8 February 2018: turnover (left chart); bid-ask spread (right chart) Since February 2017: turnover (left chart); bid-ask spread (right chart)  08.11.2018 Ten years after the crisis: evolving markets and the challenges for the SNB | Andréa M. Maechler and Thomas Moser | © Swiss National Bank  18:00 Source: SNB. Low  Low  1.146  1.142 09:00  3  EURCHF  1.152  Turnover  High  1.160  bid-ask spread  High  Unusually high trading activity for the EURCHF pair between 17:00 and 17:30, but robust liquidity conditions  Sources: Bloomberg, JP Morgan, SNB.
So reductions in Bank Rate are less likely to have undesirable effects on the supply of credit the UK economy than previously judged by the MPC. Some day we will also need to exit QE (though that will not come at least until Bank Rate has reached a level from which it could be materially cut were more stimulus required). Such a decision will be taken in pursuit of our inflation target. But I can assure you that this will be done in an orderly and clearly communicated fashion to avoid undue disruption in financial markets, including through close coordination with the Debt Management Office. 4. Expanding and clarifying liquidity insurance  How we use the balance sheet also needed to evolve to meet our financial stability objectives over the course of the financial crisis. In the decades prior to the crisis, the need for the Bank to provide liquidity support was infrequent and usually on a small scale. 2 As such, in 2007 the Bank had a relatively limited list of institutions that had access to its balance sheet through what is called the Sterling Monetary Framework (SMF), along with a conservative list of collateral acceptable in its published facilities. And there was little clarity about the circumstances under which the Bank would extend liquidity support for financial stability purposes.

In particular, a recent report by Lord Grabiner indicated concern that the Bank’s systems and controls have not always kept pace with the changing role of the Bank. Today we are publishing the results of a thorough Review 11 of our MI function. From it I would highlight three key points that will remove some unconstructive ambiguities around the gathering of MI: •  First the Bank has published a “Market Intelligence Charter” which explains in clear language the terms of the Bank’s engagement with market participants, and its rationale for gathering MI. •  Second the Bank is strengthening the set of policies (including escalation, recording and compliance policies) that govern MI, and expanding the training accompanying those policies. •  Third, the Bank will establish a Bankwide executive level committee to oversee and agree the priorities for the Bank’s MI programme to ensure it retains flexibility, focus, and relevance to the policy challenges of today and tomorrow. In addition, a dedicated MI Division will co-ordinate, synthesise and disseminate MI around the bank. The ability of the Bank’s MI function to provide information to senior policymakers over the past 8 years, as the first waves of the crisis first rushed onto the Bank’s doorstep, and then as solutions flowed back out across the system, has been vital to our effectiveness. The staff who do this work are a credit to the institution.
The central banks in the SAARC region also have the ability to play the leadership or catalyst role by providing policy directions, preparing roadmaps in consultation with other stakeholders and guiding national and regional payment system reforms and taking the responsibility to develop a common payment policy framework acceptable to all countries in the region. We need to pay attention to the existing regional clearing mechanisms as well. As in the case of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), if there are delays in processing payment instruments, combined with official accounting practices for payments that give rise to a float on the balance sheets of the central banks, that will contribute to inefficiency and uncertainty in the payment process. It is significant to note that such inefficiencies can extend to the central bank’s monetary operations and liquidity estimates as floating ACU balances cannot be treated as part of the international reserves of member central banks. Lack of clarity about rights and responsibilities regarding funds on the move is another shortcoming, especially where processing systems and accounting procedures result in long delays between the time a payment instruction is issued and the time it is cleared and settled. Both at national and regional level, supervision and oversight of payment systems have always received less attention compared to the supervision of banks and financial institutions. When there are cross border payments and common clearing and settlement mechanisms, it is important to ensure that there is a well-designed supervisory system.

Sri Lanka, India and Iran have completed their Stage I payment reforms. Pakistan is in the process of completing Stage I, while the other SAARC countries are now taking steps to modernize their payment systems. The maintenance of a safe, sound and efficient payment system is a responsibility of the central bank as many of our central banks have increased focus on wider financial system stability as one of their core objectives. In that context, central banks are called upon to coordinate payment initiatives at national, regional and global levels to ensure that there are appropriate mechanisms for smooth payment flows. 2. Why payment systems are critical to regional development? Payment services are highly integrated and interdependent systems comprising payers, payees, payment instruments, financial intermediaries, markets, service providers, technical infrastructure, legal and regulatory systems and organizational structures. The public policy objectives common to all stakeholders are to enhance public confidence, safety, integrity, access to finance and efficiency of payment systems. Therefore, we need to facilitate cross border trade and investment flows through appropriate payment instruments, clearing mechanisms and settlement systems. In a globalized and highly integrated world, financial sector development is closely associated with cross border flows, including foreign direct investment which is critical to developing economies. Most of us in the SAARC region are FDI recipients.