samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
With a temperatures ranging between 15 and 27 degrees for most parts of the year, the solar energy potential is high. The oil refineries in the country also emit gasses that can be tapped and turned into gas for domestic cookers. 3.4  Mining  Zambia’s mineral wealth remains substantial. Quite apart from the traditional mining activities in copper and cobalt the list of investment opportunities in this sector include: •  Precious metal-gold; silver; selenium;  •  The platinoid group – iron, tin, nickel and manganese;  •  Agro-minerals-rock phosphate and igneous phosphate suitable for conversion to fertilizer, peat, limestone;  •  Reclaiming of copper from slug tailing dumps;  •  Gemstones-emerald, amethyst, aquamarine, tourmaline;  •  Nickel;  BIS Review 76/2008  5  •  Uranium; and  •  Other deposits-talc, fluorspar, graphite, barites and clays, etc. The 1995 Mines and Minerals Act provide exemption from import duty and VAT on all machinery and equipment, including specialised motor vehicles required for prospecting or mining activities. In its 2008 Budget, the Government introduced the new fiscal and regulatory framework for the mining sector. Under this framework, the mining sector will begin to adequately contribute to the advancement of and the social economic welfare of the people of Zambia. 3.5  Tourism  Untapped tourism opportunities exist in all the 19 National Parks and 34 game management areas as well as the 23 million hectares devoted to the conservation of an amazing variety of animals.

Indeed, whereas half of all productivity growth at the economy-wide level in the years prior to 2008 occurred through this channel, reallocation appears to have made no contribution to productivity growth in recent years. With the progress made in fixing the banking system, this negative should become a positive. Second, it is possible that with the sharp fall in real wages during the recession employees effectively priced themselves into low-productivity work at a time of weak demand. To the extent that this allows skills to be retained and reduces costs of replacing particularly skilled employees as the recovery takes hold, the recovery could generate greater productivity as it proceeds. Third, traditional pro-cyclicalities in productivity growth such as learning-by-doing and economies of scale should begin to operate. Finally, accelerating business investment, evident in surveys and increasingly necessitated by the recovery itself, should increase output per hour. Nevertheless, it appears that the recovery will need to be sustained for a period before productivity gains can resume in earnest. The latest data show that more than a quarter of a million jobs were created in a three-month period – the biggest increase since records began in 1971. As a result, unemployment seems to be falling at a pace that will reach our 7% threshold materially earlier than we had expected. Crucially, unemployment remains above the level that is likely to be consistent with maintaining inflation at the target in the medium term.
This, in turn, should benefit emerging market economies by improving the degree of confidence that they can have in the future level of capital inflows. This is very much related to the discussion about procyclicality, an important issue that we at the Committee have taken up and addressed seriously. In particular, some have suggested that the ratings-based approaches will drive up the cost of credit for borrowers precisely at times when its supply is falling, namely during downturns in the business cycle. This is a very complex point and deserves a whole lecture in itself. Given the time constraints today, I would like just to summarise my own views. Of course, I fully respect the different opinions that may exist on this issue, but in my opinion, there are some elements that make me think that the concerns over procyclicality are exaggerated. There is some degree of procyclicality inherent in banking behaviour. The question that we should consider is whether Basel II, or any regulation, will unduly exacerbate this behaviour. Furthermore, it is also important to consider the trend around which cycles will fluctuate. I think that under Basel II, in the context of a more efficient and sound financial system, fluctuations will occur around a superior trend. This superior trend represents a better relationship between the capacity of the economy to absorb risks and the ability of the banking system to provide credit. Furthermore, one cause of pro-cyclical behaviour is low capitalisation and weak risk management.

However, while regulatory capital is important and may represent an overall constraint, research and discussions with banks actually suggest that, when determining the price of a loan, banks consider all of the economic risks associated with a particular borrower. It seems that factors such as “economic capital” and the level of competition are much more influential in individual loan pricing than regulatory capital. That finding should be no surprise to any banker or supervisor – banks that are managing their risks appropriately are already considering the risks that they face when they lend to higher-risk borrowers, and thus lower credit quality is already priced into a loan, even under the existing less risk-sensitive capital rules today. Furthermore, there are additional elements in Basel II that can contribute to alleviating concerns about the impact on capital flows to emerging markets. Let me mention the reduction in capital charges for retail lending, residential mortgages, small and medium enterprises (exposures below € 1 million) and well-provisioned past-due loans. Also, the recognition of credit risk mitigants, such as collateral and guarantees, is significantly better in the new framework of Basel II. If we take a medium or longer-term perspective, the different channels that I mentioned before will ensure better access to financial flows for the same risk.
29  For instance, the report of the Canfin-Grandjean Commission (2015) discusses the merits of an indicative price corridor with a maximum and minimum price that can be increased over time. See www.elysee.fr/assets/ReportCommission-Canfin-Grandjean-ENG.pdf  30  These skews could be upside or downside, depending on business model and the point in the transition path. 31  Already our failure to act since 2010 has increased the task – since emissions persist – and the pace of decarbonisation required – for instance see http://site.thomsonreuters.com/corporate/pdf/global-500-greenhousegases-performance-trends-2010-2013.pdf  BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  We will need the market to work alongside in order to maximise their impact. With better information as a foundation, we can build a virtuous circle of better understanding of tomorrow’s risks, better pricing for investors, better decisions by policymakers, and a smoother transition to a lower-carbon economy. By managing what gets measured, we can break the Tragedy of the Horizon. 12  BIS central bankers’ speeches

Banks have demonstrated in recent stress tests their resilience to a sharp adjustment in credit market, and markets, rather than banks, have been the driving force behind recent growth. 10  But recent IMF work shows how rapid growth of corporate debt overall, and any skewing of corporate debt towards riskier firms can – by creating a debt overhang – add to medium term risks to economic growth. 11  The jury is out on whether what we have seen in the UK is material in this respect. But to keep the wider economy protected from financial disruption, it’s important that banks are resilient to these risks if they do become material. And that’s one reason why (as the Financial Policy Committee said in the Record of its March meeting) the FPC intends to “re-consider the adequacy [of capital levels] in June, with a focus on the evolution of domestic risk appetite.”  Let’s move on to the other hidden risks: the underwater bergs that can make markets less resilient  There were certainly plenty of these lurking under the surface of the system of 2008, making it fragile and amplifying market adjustments. They help to explain how $ of losses on subprime mortgages turned into well over $ of write-downs in the global banking system. The post-crisis reform programme has dealt with them. But our duty is not just to prevent the last crisis, it is to keep up with new risks as the financial system evolves and, where needed, take action to address them.
We would like the guidance to be relevant not only to Basel Committee member countries, but to non-member countries as well. We would therefore value your feedback. As we take our work forward in the Basel Committee, and as the IFSB conducts its own work in preparing its exposure draft, I believe we would all benefit from keeping a sense of proportion. Clearly,  4  BIS Review 38/2005  we cannot have the same expectations for the governance of a large, complex bank that we have for a much smaller bank. When the Basel Committee issues supervisory guidance, we typically say that supervisors’ expectations should be commensurate with the size, complexity and risk profile of the institution. That applies equally here. My hope is that we can raise the bar for the governance of the banking industry as a whole, while concentrating our supervisory resources on the governance of the most complex and sophisticated institutions. Conclusion I realise that I am all that stands between you and a marvellous gala dinner, so I will keep my closing remarks very brief. I would just like to emphasise that sound corporate governance should be considered a key element of a bank’s ability to understand and manage its risks. As supervisors, we should direct our resources to helping banks improve their controls, culture and clarity in respect to risk management. In so doing, I believe that we will help achieve our objective of a stable and healthy banking system that contributes to the proper functioning of the economy.

A bank can use the most sophisticated measurement tools in the world, but if it is poorly governed, it will be vulnerable to financial and operational weaknesses. The Basel Committee recognised this when it developed the qualifications that banks must meet in order to adopt the most advanced approaches under the first pillar of Basel II. The first pillar aligns minimum capital requirements more closely with banks’ actual underlying risks. Qualifying banks may also rely partly on their own measures of those risks, which will help to create economic incentives to improve those measures. This presumes, of course, that qualifying banks meet rigorous criteria related to the governance of their risk management frameworks. While much attention has been focused on the more complex quantitative aspects of the new framework, I believe the most important qualifying criteria are those that address how the bank’s risk management framework is governed. Effective risk controls are essential to the successful implementation of the new capital framework. Under Basel II, the board of directors is expected to establish the institution’s risk tolerances, policies, and code of conduct, and to ensure that a sufficiently strong risk control framework is in place. Senior management, in turn, is responsible for implementing the risk control framework set forth by the board. In addition, the framework sets out clear responsibilities for auditors and other quality control functions to ensure that a bank’s risk control framework is subject to effective independent review, oversight and validation.
In the now-standard Fed practice of communicate, communicate, and communicate, we published detailed plans well in advance on how we would gradually and predictably reduce the balance sheet.5 As with lift-off, this process has proceeded smoothly without market disruption or volatility—and that’s the way we like it.6 Stage 3: “Normal” This brings me to the third stage, that of “normal” monetary policy. As interest rates have moved well away from zero and the balance sheet has started shrinking, a natural question arises: What does normal monetary policy look like? As before, I’ll start with interest rate policy and finish with the balance sheet. For those who follow the Fed closely, you’ve noticed that the FOMC has been slimming down its statements of late and using less forward guidance about the future path of policy. In this vein, the FOMC this week removed language from its statement indicating that monetary policy remains accommodative.7 Let me make clear, these more concise statements do not signify a shift in our monetary policy approach. Instead, they represent the natural evolution of the language describing the factors influencing our policy decisions in the context of the strength of the economic outlook and inflation being near our 2 percent longer-run goal. These changes in how we communicate our policy views are a sign that we are nearing the end of the second stage of the normalization process, and are inching closer to conducting normal monetary policy.

In part due to the Fed’s actions, the U.S. economy gradually recovered, and as a result the FOMC has been slowly but surely moving monetary policy “back to normal.” This process can be thought of in three stages. Stage 1: Lift-off The first stage in policy normalization focused on the lift-off of the federal funds rate target from near zero, which occurred in December 2015. But, well before that happened, the FOMC went to great effort to communicate its thinking to the public to better prepare it for the upcoming change in policy. 2 Importantly, we also made extensive preparations to ensure that we were ready and able to raise rates as needed, in the context of a very large Fed balance sheet and bank reserves. And, consistent with the Fed’s aim to be as transparent as possible, we published our plans on how we would use interest rates paid on bank reserves and overnight reverse repurchase agreements to keep the federal funds rate within the FOMC’s target range.3 At the time—in light of the shallow recovery and low inflation—the FOMC was very focused on balancing the risk of a premature removal of accommodation against concerns that excesses could eventually develop in the economy. In the end, lift-off went without a hitch. The approach developed back then has served us extremely well in controlling the federal funds rate, and has proven to be flexible as market conditions have evolved. I will come back to this point later.
By end 2008, savings in the stabilization fund (FRR) , totaled DA 4113 billion ( equivalent to $ billion);  •  domestically financing the economy’s large investments, in the context of excess saving rates over investment rates;  •  developing the bond segment of the financial market, with access limited to domestic investors;  •  Advancing the restructuring of the banking sector following failure and bankruptcy of small private banks which resulted in withdrawing their licences over 2003-2006 while compensating depositors through the Deposits Guarantee Fund. The strengthened macroeconomic stability, as evidenced by subdued inflation (4.4 % in 2008 despite the surge in world commodity prices) and a real exchange rate of the Dinar near its equilibrium level, as well as important foreign exchange reserves $ billion, by end 2008) and low external debt, have constituted sound safeguards against the inherent shocks of the current international financial crisis. In addition, indirect monetary policy instruments (deposit auctions, marginal deposit facility, …) have been successfully used to limit the impact of structural excess liquidity on inflation. Although the direct contagion impact of the international financial crisis on the Algerian banking system is limited, in view of its small exposure to international financial markets, increased attention is directed to further strengthening and preserving its soundness. In this regard, the required minimum capital for banks and financial institutions have recently been substantially increased to strengthen their resilience and increase their lending capacity.

Mohammed Laksaci: Financial system developments in Algeria – resilience and risks in the face of the international financial crisis and its spillover effects Speech by Dr Mohammed Laksaci, Governor of the Bank of Algeria, at a Meeting with the Algerian Bankers Association, Algiers, 22 January 2009. *  *  *  Algeria’s strong macroeconomic performance over the past nine years and the gradual strengthening of the banking sector’s stability have contributed to establishing a relative resilience to external shocks. Key achievements include: •  sound management of international reserves (no investments in risky assets), paying due attention to the strategic objective of safeguarding asset portfolios against any loss of capital;  •  significantly reducing external debt, in 2005 and 2006, after strictly limiting external borrowing since early 2000. By end 2008, total medium and long term debt stood at only $ billion (less than 3% of GDP). Furthermore, banks’ external liabilities represent less than 1% of their total liabilities, and banks are required to deposit their end-of-day foreign exchange balances at the central bank which manages the country’s overall exchange position;  •  saving part of the fiscal revenue windfalls, with an annual budget saving averaging 23% of GDP during the period 2005-2008.
As I have said on previous occasions, the greatest cause for concern at present should not be predicting exactly when positive quarter-on-quarter growth will resume, but rather determining to what extent the Spanish economy is ready – or not – to move into a long phase of robust growth. During the last upturn, the Spanish economy built up some significant imbalances, such as the excessive weight of real estate activities, a swollen external deficit, a relative loss of competitiveness, and high corporate and household debt. Over the course of the crisis, some of these imbalances have begun to be corrected, but others are still significantly holding back a pickup in growth. With the crisis, these pre-existing structural problems have been compounded by an increase in unemployment to levels far higher than those of any other developed countries and by the sharp deterioration in public finances. These are now undoubtedly the two main problems affecting our economy. To embark on a sustainable economic recovery, the imbalances built up by the Spanish economy before and during the crisis must be reversed. Job destruction must be halted and unemployment absorbed. And, further, an ambitious plan must be devised and set in place to cut the budget deficit, to redress the financial position of the private sector and, in sum, to mitigate all those structural shortcomings that are currently weighing on the recovery and contributing to reducing the growth potential with which our economy will face the new expansionary cycle.

Protecting economic muscle: Finance and the Covid crisis Speech given by Alex Brazier, Executive Director for Financial Stability Strategy and Risk, Bank of England Member of the Financial Policy Committee  CFO Virtual Agenda 23 July 2020  I am grateful to Imane Bakkar, Alina Barnett, Kiman Bassi, Richard Button, Mai Daher, Lee Foulger, Dan Gray, Benjamin King, Philip King, Sophie Stone, Matt Waldron, and Danny Walker for their assistance in preparing these remarks. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  These are immensely challenging and uncertain times for many of you. You have faced the reality of the economic numbers that hit the headlines: the precipitous fall in output, followed more recently by the beginnings of a normalisation in some sectors as public health measures have been eased. The path followed by the economy in recent months has had more to do with epidemiology than economics. How the public health situation, and therefore the economy, evolve over the coming months and quarters remains to be seen. The target of economic policy has been to minimise the longer-term ‘scarring’ of our economy’s muscle; muscle that is made up of your and other businesses. The aim is to minimise the harm to our productive capacity – to allow output and employment to get as close as possible to their pre-covid paths, once public health measures are lifted fully. Scarring could arise easily.
Total credit is expanding broadly in line with normal growth in nominal GDP. Chart 22. Credit growth Per cent  24  24  20  20  Non-financial enterprises  16  16 Households  Total credit  12  12  8  8  4  4  0  0  -4 1997  -4 1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  Source: Norges Bank  Chart 23. Enterprise credit and investment Nominal growth. Per cent 30  30 Credit  20  20  10  10  0  0  -10  -10  Fixed investment  -20  -20  -30  -30 1983  1987  1991  1995  1999  2003  Sources: Statistics Norway and Norges Bank  Developments in credit to enterprises shadow developments in their investments. Low credit growth indicates that mainland business investment has not yet picked up. Household debt has increased sharply since 1999. Developments in debt in the 1990s may partly be interpreted as a delayed adaptation to the deregulation of the housing and credit markets in the 1980s after many households experienced financial difficulties following the relaxation. Moreover, there now seems to be a tendency towards investing in property and incurring loans at a more mature age so that younger generations not only inherit dwellings, but debt as well. Both debt and wealth are on the rise for these more mature age groups.

An economic turnaround has occurred, with a soft landing after the long period of high cost inflation in Norway and a low level of activity in other countries. But inflation is too low. As mentioned, there are three main factors that have contributed to this. First, the global downturn had considerable implications for the impact of interest-rate setting in Norway. A strong krone contributed to the decline in inflation. The krone has now returned to its previous level so that the effect will be reversed. Second, low inflation in other countries and rapid changes in the international division of labour have resulted in a fall in prices for imported goods and services, even when measured in terms of what Norwegian importers pay in foreign currency. Third, intensified domestic competition also appears to have exerted downward pressure on prices. As a result of both changes in the international division of labour and increased domestic competition, there is idle labour and available real capital in Norway. We cannot rule out that adjustments will be made over a period of time and that these adjustments will encompass a large portion of the domestic economy. Thus, it is possible that the level of output that is consistent with stable inflation will increase. Inflation will remain low in 2004. However, the easing of monetary policy will gradually push up inflation. As mentioned, it may take some time before interest rates in other countries are increased to a considerable extent.