samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Deliver the right message at the right time. 18. Third, we will provide more avenues for people who are in difficulty or financial distress, to seek help. We must do everything we can to prevent people from getting into a worse situation, or getting into a debt spiral. CCS, with the help of ABS, runs a very useful debt management programme for those who cannot re-pay their borrowings from banks. We can do more, using our social workers and counsellors. 19. MoneySENSE, through the new institute that I talked about, the Institute of Financial Literacy, is now conducting a pilot training programme to help social workers and counsellors, to equip them with financial literacy knowledge so they can provide advice to low income households, or those who come and see them for help. It may have to do with cutting down on utility bills, or it may be about spending wisely in weekly marketing, without compromising on health and wellbeing. 20. MoneySENSE will continue working with the social service sector with the objective of training social workers and counsellors, so they can expand our outreach to Singaporeans. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Conclusion 21. This is what we plan to do for the future. I think we have done good work for the first ten years, but there is a lot more work ahead to help Singaporeans.

23 Individual investors building their own investment portfolios should take special care to diversify and avoid concentrated exposure to any one investment or issuer. One way for individual investors to gain exposure to a diversified portfolio of bonds in a cost-efficient manner is to invest through bond funds. MAS has for many years promoted the development of index bond funds in the regional markets, through the Asian Bond Fund (ABF) initiative led by the EMEAP Group. Today, there are many such offerings, some of which can be bought and sold through the exchange as exchange-traded funds (ETFs). We encourage fund managers to increase the number and variety of bond funds and ETFs available to individual investors. Supporting secondary market liquidity 24 Let me now turn from our efforts in the primary market to secondary market liquidity. Market participants generally agree that bond market liquidity has become more challenging. This is the case globally but also in Singapore. Banks continue to provide prices for a majority of bonds issued here, although the amounts they are willing to transact in, may be smaller for weaker credits and smaller issuances. 25 A functioning secondary market is critical for the sustainable growth of the bond market. To deepen the secondary market, MAS has been working with the industry on several initiatives over the years. For example, to improve price transparency, we collaborated with banks and service providers, such as Bloomberg and Markit, to make available end-of-day corporate bond prices on 5/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  their platforms.
Additionally, an integrated ASEAN market will also serve to facilitate the meeting of global standards as SMEs upgrade to meet the more harmonised compliance requirements across the region. Thirdly, SMEs will also benefit from the drive to strengthen connectivity in the ASEAN region. As highlighted in the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity, a comprehensive roadmap of strategies has been outlined to address connectivity challenges on three key areas, namely physical infrastructure, institutions and the people in ASEAN. Increased connectivity across all three dimensions will provide the physical and soft elements needed to create the enabling business environment for SMEs. Fourthly, various SME-specific policies by the ASEAN member countries will also benefit SMEs in the region. This includes the establishment of a regional SME internship programme which has assisted SMEs in seven ASEAN countries to enhance the skills of their employees through structured staff exchanges and capacity building workshops. A further initiative is the recent launch of the online ASEAN Marketplace which aims to provide SMEs with information on the business environment in each respective ASEAN country and a business directory of SMEs to facilitate the access to the markets in the region as well as the potential for collaboration of SMEs across the region. To date, more than 1,000 SMEs across the region have registered with this online portal. It is expected to attract more than 20,000 businesses during the course of this year.

Moving forward, the ASEAN Strategic Action Plan for SME Development 2016–2025 will also focus on promoting productivity, technology and innovation, access to financing, enhancing market access and internationalisation, while also enhancing the policy and regulatory environment, and promoting entrepreneurship and human capital development. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Fifth and finally, SMEs in the region will also benefit from ASEAN’s strategic economic linkages with the greater Asia and with other parts of the world, including the advanced economies and other emerging regions. Several countries have entered into bilateral agreements, including trade agreements with ASEAN to enhance economic cooperation. These multilateral and bilateral engagements have the potential to create many new business opportunities for ASEAN SMEs. Greater financial integration as a catalyst of growth for SMEs Let me now turn to the prospects for greater regional financial integration and its potential to support growth for the ASEAN SMEs. Given the region’s high savings rate of approximately 30% of GDP, there is immense scope for greater financial integration in the region. An intensification of financial integration in ASEAN will serve to enhance the more effective intermediation of funds and thus the efficient allocation of resources in the region, thereby acting as a catalyst to achieve a growth that is mutually reinforcing for the economies in the region. This will allow for excess savings in one country to be channelled into productive investments in another country within the region.
This is the first time we intervened in the foreign exchange market since 1999. Relatively quickly after the interventions, the market began to function more normally. 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  Later in spring, the krone appreciated on the back of a rise in oil prices and reduced uncertainty in global financial markets. Recently, oil prices have been broadly at the same level as at the beginning of 2020, and the krone is somewhat stronger than prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. In spring 2020, risk premiums in the Norwegian money market rose considerably. Norges Bank took a range of measures to improve market liquidity and ensure pass-through of a lower policy rate to money market rates and bank lending rates. Among other things, Norges Bank offered banks extraordinary liquidity in both NOK and USD. In advance of the monetary policy meeting in May, financial market stress subsided and premiums in both the money and bond markets fell. The normalisation of liquidity policy is well underway. By the end of August 2021, all extraordinary loans from Norges Bank to banks will have been repaid, and the relaxation of collateral requirements for loans from Norges Bank will be reversed. Downturn in the Norwegian economy Activity in the Norwegian economy fell abruptly in 2020 Q2. The Covid-19 outbreak and extensive containment measures led to production halts and lower activity across a range of businesses. Mainland GDP was around 11 percent lower in April 2020 than in February the same year. Many employees were furloughed or made redundant.

There are always risks to the outlook – on both sides – and to ignore them in either direction would be foolish. What the MPC must do is continually update its assessment of those risks, and set policy in order that, on balance, inflation remains on track to meet the target in the medium term. No one should doubt our determination to meet the target. The inflation target introduced in 1992, and the new regime for monetary policy decision-making introduced in 1997, have shown beyond doubt that monetary policy in the United Kingdom is dedicated to maintaining low and stable inflation. Indeed, for ten years, I was, to my frustration, regularly described as a hawk. But I am neither hawk nor dove. Everyone on the Committee votes according to his or her judgement of the outlook for the economy. I have not changed. The Committee has not changed. Circumstances have changed. When confidence, output and trade around the world collapsed in the autumn of 2008, the balance of threats to the inflation outlook shifted rapidly to the downside. So the Bank of England and central banks in other industrialised countries responded by reducing official interest rates nearly to zero and injecting money directly into the economy. There will come a time when our task will be to manage the exit from such an abnormal degree of monetary stimulus. The MPC will not hesitate to begin to withdraw the current degree of stimulus when we judge that is necessary.
Speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 29 November. BIS central bankers’ speeches  17  Figure 1 Business cycle and financial cycle  Business cycle Financial cycle  Table 1 Increases in expenditure for standard households due to policy measures SEK and per cent Luleå 39 000 Disposable income (SEK/month) Total debt (SEK) 1 100 000 Debt ratio (%) 235 Increase in expenditure in SEK Countercyclical capital buffer 128 1 100 Tax relief Mortgage cap 1 229 Amortisation expenditure 1 078 Interest expenditure 151 Amortisation 1 833 Increase in interest rate 1 283 Increase in expenditure as a percentage of disp. income Countercyclical capital buffer 0.3 2.8 Tax relief Mortgage cap 3.2 Amortisation expenditure 2.8 Interest expenditure 0.4 Amortisation 4.7 Increase in interest rate 3.3  Upplands Väsby  Central Stockholm (high debt ratio)  44 000 1 750 000 331  55 000 3 950 000 598  204 1 750 1 956 1 716 240 2 917 2 042  461 3 950 4 415 3 873 542 6 583 4 608  0.5 4.0 4.4 3.9 0.5 6.6 4.6  0.8 7.2 8.0 7.0 1.0 12.0 8.4  Source: The Riksbank. 18  BIS central bankers’ speeches

One such area, in which both the Financial Policy Committee and Prudential Regulation Committee have been taking a keen interest, is leveraged lending – in other words lending to highly-indebted companies. We have said a lot about this over the last year so I will confine myself to a brief comment only. That comment is that sometimes horizon-scanning does not require binoculars, because the object of study is already at the front gate. I think it would be very odd if we did not pay close attention to a class of lending which grew globally at a rate of 16% last year, and in which there has been a very significant slide in underwriting standards. Further, much of the lending is being funnelled through banks to a variety of end-investors who may or may not understand what they are getting into. A key determinant of risk in these products is the 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  4  leverage, but measuring leverage is difficult. Analysts often adjust leverage measures to remove large one-off costs and account for optimistic future growth in earnings. These so-called ‘add-backs’ have been growing steadily in recent years, so the risk metrics in an analyst’s company report are increasingly likely to contain some heroic (or unrealisable) assumptions. The potential risks to banks here are both direct, and indirect through the impact of corporate indebtedness on the economy. Compared to this, the move up the risk curve of UK lenders in the mortgage market looks rather benign.
Since then, a number of structural forces have probably pulled down the ‘equilibrium’ level of global and domestic real interest rates, making this a conservative calculation. See, for example, Vlieghe (2016) ‘Debt, Demographics and the Distribution of Income’ http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/2016/872.aspx 8 This point was made back in 2012 by my colleague Ben Broadbent. See Broadbent, B. (2012) ‘Deleveraging’, remarks given at Market News International, London, on 15 March 2012. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Documents/historicpubs/speeches/2012/speech553.pdf  9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  9  Lenders’ own assessments of how risky these loans are, which they use to calculate how much capital they need to withstand losses, have fallen. Over the past two years, these ‘risk weights’ on credit card loans have fallen by 7% and those on other consumer loans by 15% (Chart 11). This improved performance doesn’t reflect a tightening up of lending standards. Credit scores of new borrowers are actually a little lower than they were 2 years ago (Chart 12). Instead, the improved performance of borrowers reflects the environment of continued employment growth and easier credit terms. Lenders have been the lucky beneficiaries of the benign way the economy has evolved. In expanding the supply of credit, they may be placing undue weight on the recent performance of credit cards and loans in benign conditions. Car finance  Car finance has drawn particular attention, with growth of 15% in the past year and more than 100% in the past 4 years. The way we buy cars has been transformed.

Source: Bank of England 2017 Q2 Credit Conditions Survey (CCS). (a) A positive balance indicates that the changes in the factors described have served to increase credit availability. (b) Question: ‘How have the following factors affected overall secured credit availability to households over the latest three months relative to the previous three months?’ The chart shows responses to the option 'market share objectives'. (c) Net percentage balances are calculated by weighting together the responses of those lenders who answered the question by their market shares. Chart 17. Proportion of new mortgages with (a) no fees  Chart 18. Loan to income distribution of new (a) mortgage lending  Per cent  Proportion of £ fee new mortgages  50 45 40 35  30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2011  12  13  14  15  16  17  Sources: Moneyfacts and Bank calculations. (a) The proportion of £ fee products in each year is calculated relative to the total number of new mortgages offered during the year. The proportion in 2017 is calculated based on data from January to April 2017. Sources: FCA Product Sales Database and Bank calculations. (a) The Product Sales Database includes regulated mortgages only. 21  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  21  Chart 19. Major UK banks’ capital ratios  Chart 20.
There will always be a price at which to export. Thus, the greater impact is a decrease in the prices of our exports, since quantity limitations are smaller (Figure 9). Although lower prices push producers towards reducing their supply, with the ensuing implications on employment, output and investment, it is very different from what happens, for example, to producers of intermediate goods, specific for the automotive industry. Their demand falls dramatically and all their already started production piles up unsold. And this leads to a subsequent production standstill. This explains the intensity with which the crisis is impacting the more industrialized economies of Asia. To sum up, the international crisis is bearing real effects on our output, specifically on our exports, but its reach in Chile is more limited than the effect on other economies which are based on manufacturing exports. (iii)  Global confidence crisis  As from last September, global confidence plummeted throughout the world (Figure 10). Individuals as well as companies adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude in view of the high uncertainty and deterioration of the economic outlook. As it is likely to happen in more uncertain scenarios – and, in this case, extremely uncertain – , individuals stop consuming abruptly and companies dramatically revise their investment and production plans. Therefore, propagation of the financial crisis effects was worsened by a massive loss of confidence. These losses of confidence may lead to recessions which are self-fulfilling prophecies.

18 This appreciation puts up the price of Swiss exports abroad or narrows the margins for Swiss exporters – or a combination of both. This will be reflected sooner or later in the export figures. Indeed, in recent months, the recovery of Swiss goods exports has slowed markedly; although this is also related to a slowdown in global economic momentum. The financial crisis and financial market concerns regarding the public finances of a number of industrialised countries have increased demand for the Swiss franc as a safe haven currency. The stability of the euro area is therefore an important factor influencing the Swiss franc and the Swiss economy as a whole. EU citizens clearly have a vested interest in the stability of the euro. The same is very much true for the citizens of Switzerland. I am confident that the EU will ultimately succeed in once again deeply anchoring a culture of economic and financial stability. Earlier this year, European politicians and policymakers began to take decisive action to that end. As we all know, crucial challenges lie ahead. These call for determination, courage and perseverance – not only from policy makers, but also – and most importantly – from the citizens of the EU. I am confident that the EU and the euro area will overcome these challenges. In the past, Europe has always emerged stronger from periods of difficulty.
In addition, the system provided a market guaranteed price to both buyers and producers enabling them to plan their cash flows properly. It also helped both parties to raise loans from banks for both working capital and investment capital purposes. The future sustainability of the forward sale contract system will depend on the establishment of proper futures market for commodities in Sri Lanka. It is ironical that Sri Lanka, being a country famous for its rich spices throughout history and three major commodities, viz., tea, rubber and coconut, in the last 150 years, has to think of setting a futures market in the country at this late stage, when all the other countries in the region have moved much ahead in that context. However, the initial work relating to the establishment of a futures exchange is presently being done with the initiative taken by the Central Bank. Technical assistance for this purpose has been received from the Futures Commodities Exchange in India and the exchange is to be set up within the next 2 year period. Part IV Summary and conclusions This paper examined the strategies adopted by Sri Lanka, with the initiative of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, to introduce a sustainable socio-economic security system based on the principles of the market mechanism. Despite the popular belief that the poor need subsidised  27  In fact, the system was largely saved by the flexible approach of buyers when the market price was significantly higher than the contract price of a produce.

W A Wijewardena: Sustainable socio-economic security – some lessons from the experiences of Sri Lanka Speech by Mr W A Wijewardena, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the International Conference on “Universalizing Socio-economic Security in South Asia”, organized by The Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, and the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi, 17-20 February 2008. This paper is based on the personal experiences of the writer as Director of Small Farmers and the Landless Credit Project, dubbed in Sinhala as “Isuru Project”, when he was the Director of Rural Credit of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka from 1993 to 2000 and Deputy Governor in charge of this portfolio since then. The credit for the achievements of Isuru Project is shared equally by all the stakeholders involved in the Project. The views expressed in the paper are those of the writer and should not be construed as those of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. *  *  *  Introduction History is abundant with numerous initiatives taken by mankind, both through state action and personal enterprise, to ensure socio-economic security, or in layman’s language, opportunity for all the people to enjoy the benefits of economic prosperity without discrimination or reservation. In ancient times in Sri Lanka, the kings took it upon themselves the responsibility for creating such a society which was considered as a just society 1 .
A strong increase in the population has expanded the growth capacity of the Norwegian economy without a comparable increase in wages. In particular, the supply of foreign labour has increased sharply after EU enlargement in 2004. Over the past two years, these labour inflows have accounted for over 30 per cent of growth in the labour force in Norway. At the same time, this has enabled Norwegian companies to be bolder in accepting new assignments and investing knowing that they can procure labour throughout Europe. In addition to increased labour inflows from Poland, Lithuania and other central European countries, we have long benefited from inflows of labour from Sweden. Many workers are on temporary assignment and their consumption is primarily concentrated in their home country. The Norwegian economy has seen a net capacity increase. Third, the Norwegian business sector has been quick to integrate new technology. This applies both to companies competing on international markets and those supplying goods and services to the domestic market. In comparison with other countries, it is particularly productivity gains in banks and other service sectors that stand out. Examples are automated processes and swifter payments in the financial industry and improved inventory and management systems in commerce and transport. This results in lower production costs.

Solid productivity growth and high prices for export goods, and goods and services supplied to the petroleum sector have contributed to a fall in the wage share of Norwegian enterprises in recent years, despite a low rise in prices for consumer goods and services in Norway. Wage shares have also fallen in many other countries. The global supply of labour has increased as result of the integration of China, India and central European countries into world trade. This may have had a permanent effect on wage shares. Another possibility is that increased competition for labour will again push up wage shares. The outlook for the Norwegian economy Monetary policy influences the economy with a lag. Norges Bank therefore has to be forward-looking in interest rate setting. Developments in prices and capacity utilisation in Norway are influenced by both domestic conditions and economic developments in other countries. Growth in the global economy is the strongest recorded in several decades. Continued high growth in China and India is contributing to holding up growth. Reforms in European product and service markets are also expected to lead to higher domestic demand. Growth in the US is expected to slow  2  BIS Review 34/2007  somewhat. A decline in housing construction and difficulties facing the US automotive industry are two of the main factors dragging down growth. The turnover time in the US housing market has increased markedly and housing starts have shown a considerable decline. House price inflation has levelled off.