That is why I consider this conference as highly important. The Bank of Albania has devoted constant attention to financial education. Our education agenda is integral and comprehensive both in terms of geography and age groups, full of interactive elements and modern communication methodology. Furthermore, I would like to refer to some of the elements that constitute the philosophical grounds of our educational work. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  First, I would like to recall that financial welfare is inextricably related with the country’s economic progress. It has been already proven that individual’s welfare is proportionate to economic activity and prices of financial assets. The cause-effect relation is true on both directions. Our economy and financial institutions are strong when revenues and wealth grow. Financially healthy individuals are inclined to increase their consumption and, therefore, boost their spending, consequently pushing the economy forward. Moreover, financially successful people boost lending potential by channelling their savings into deposits. Therefore, they are in a position to have access in crediting by the banking system, giving life to new businesses which, in turn, provide higher employment and welfare. To most of the people, having a job and a salary or estate is essential to personal financial welfare. However, the fact that you may have a job, or a salary does not imply that you automatically have the capacity to make wise decisions on effective money utilisation. This is the point where our relation with financial education is subjected to the test of the truth. Is this test passed?

Having grown steadily before the pandemic, our exports accelerated and increased sharply after the pandemic, reaching USD 126 billion in the first half of 2022, up nearly 20% year-on-year. This marks a historical high for our exports in the first six months of any year. 3/5  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  We identify three main reasons for our record-breaking export performance despite the armed conflict between our major trading partners. First, we see that Türkiye has become a key trade hub thanks to its increased relative advantages in the reshaped global market after the pandemic. Second, we observe that our exporters have the capacity to adapt rapidly to changing conditions by covering diverse products and destinations thanks to their resilient and flexible structure. I would like to discuss this point with you in more detail. As you know, Turkey has a much stronger export structure compared to many similar, neighboring or regional economies. This is supported by the high share of manufacturing in exports and the diversity of the number of destinations and exported products. The destination and product diversity of our exports doubled in 2022 compared to 2006. Around 29% of the increase in our exports between 2015 and 2022 was generated by new markets. The flexible and dynamic structure of our exporters protects our economy against external shocks. Our companies' flexibility in introducing new products and finding new markets allows them to compensate for possible losses in adverse conditions, including the current armed conflict.