As of April 2020, we have seen 117 cross-border financing deals amounting to USD 11 billion. Chongqing enterprises raised USD 7 billion in Singapore, while enterprises in Sichuan, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Guangxi and Yunnan obtained nearly USD 4 billion of financing. Cross-border loans from Singapore grew 67% y-o-y to reach RMB 5 billion this year. Our financial institutions continue to establish in each other’s markets. A Chongqing-based FinTech, Whalet, obtained a licence in Singapore to conduct crossborder remittance this year. I am also pleased that Vickers Venture Partners, a venture capital fund focusing on deeptech, will be establishing a Qualified Foreign Limited Partnership Fund in Chongqing. Let us continue to build on the progress we have made. I suggest three areas where Chongqing and Singapore can work closer together to strengthen links between the Western Region and ASEAN. one, trade digitalisation; 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  two, green finance; three, disaster risk insurance. Digitalising the International Land-Sea Trade Corridor COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of digitalising trade. We have seen how restrictions imposed to contain COVID-19 created severe trade disruptions. Part of this is because trade processes are complex and still largely paper-based. Minister Josephine Teo spoke about the CCI’s New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (CCIILSTC). Let us make the ILSTC fully digitalised end-to-end: this will be the first of its kind in the world. A digitalised ILSTC will: improve efficiency and reduce cost; build trust in documentation and verification processes; and enable better risk management, reduced fraud, and lower costs.

Inflation expectations  Inflation expectations cannot be observed directly, but approximate measures can be derived indirectly in three different ways: asking a sample of consumers, surveying professional forecasters and extracting information from financial markets. Let me elaborate. The European Commission conducts a poll every month in which it seeks consumers’ opinions on inflation developments in the euro area, in particular their perceptions of current inflation developments and their expectations for the next 12 months. These two measures are plotted in Chart 10, together with actual inflation. Consumers’ expectations have declined strongly in recent months, reaching a record low in May (the survey started in 1985). Most respondents thought that prices would either remain unchanged or fall in the next 12 months. But this is not really the same as expecting deflation. The second way of measuring inflation expectations is via the ECB’s Survey of Professional Forecasters. It suggests that most respondents regard deflation as unlikely. In the second quarter of 2009, none of the 50 participants reported a negative point estimate for 2009, and two participants reported a point estimate below zero for 2010. Together with point estimates, participants are also asked to assess the likelihood of future inflation falling within given ranges. Averaging the individual responses provides a summary of their assessment. As Chart 11 shows, in the most recent survey, respondents assigned an overall 18% probability that annual inflation will be negative in 2009 (left side of the chart), which is significantly higher than in previous rounds.