Regional Development The Central Bank continues to execute many concessionary development credit schemes through Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs), with a view of providing refinance facilities, interest subsidies and/or credit guarantees and credit supplementary services targeting development of agriculture and livestock, micro, small and medium scale enterprise (MSME) sectors, improving the financial inclusion and promoting balanced regional growth in the country. In order to strengthen effective credit delivery and to broaden the outreach of the formal financial sector, several loan schemes were introduced during 2017. 30  Further, the Central Bank facilitates all sectors of the economy by enhancing flow of credit and credit plus services and provision of non-financial support to achieve sustainable development and create a conducive financial environment to bring-in under-served segments of society to the formal financial sector. Priority is also being attached to develop a National Financial Inclusion Strategy for the country. In addition, we plan to automate activities that pertain to registration of loan applications of borrowers and processing of refinance applications of PFIs and to focus on enhancing the efficiency of credit delivery mechanisms, thereby expediting the flow of credit to the needy sectors of the economy. Going forward, the improved credit delivery mechanism along with other non-financial support extended will considerably enhance regional development efforts of the Central Bank. These efforts will also support achieving the goals of the National Food Production Programme of the government. 31  5. Concluding Remarks Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me conclude with a brief summary of the Road Map.

The development of the labour market is also continuing to be strong, and unemployment has fallen somewhat more steeply than was anticipated at the monetary policy meeting in December. Furthermore, inflation has increased at a slightly faster rate due to higher energy and commodity prices. On the whole, growth abroad is also deemed to be strong. While it is true that developments in Europe are still uncertain due to the fiscal problems in several European countries, prospects in the United States are judged to have brightened somewhat. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  As you are no doubt aware, on a number of occasions over the last year, I have entered reservations against monetary policy decisions, including the most recent one in February. One important argument for me has been that increased interest rate differentials in relation to other countries may have effects on the exchange rate. During the autumn in particular, my reservations have essentially been due to my scepticism of the assumption that foreign central banks will raise their policy rates at the rate specified by the Riksbank’s main scenario. In my opinion, this has meant that the main scenario’s repo rate path has given rise to a considerably larger interest rate differential in relation to other countries than has been assumed in the Riksbank’s forecast. This could lead to a greater appreciation of the Swedish krona than this forecast suggests, which, in turn, would dampen both inflation and resource utilisation.