samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Hamad Al-Sayari: Review of the Saudi Arabian economy Speech by His Excellency Hamad Al-Sayari, Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, on the occasion of the presentation of SAMA's Forty-Second Annual Report, Riyadh, 14 November 2006. *  *  *  Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, It is a great pleasure for me to present to You the Forty-Second Annual Report of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency which reviews the most salient domestic developments of fiscal year 1425/26 H corresponding to 2005G and latest developments during the current year 2006. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Your government continued during 2005 and the preceding period of this year to make a number of important decisions and achievements in the area of updating regulations, restructuring the national economy, approving a number of great development projects, accession to the World Trade Organization which is a significant step towards further integration into the world economy, attracting foreign investments, opening and expanding markets and reinforcing the competitive capacity of the national economy. Therefore, an observer may say that the national economy is moving in confident and rapid steps on the right path towards more strength, diversification and employment of national man power. All these efforts would boost achieving sustainable growth. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, In pursuance of Your efforts aimed at regulating, streamlining and enhancing institutional work, You have recently approved the Homage System (Nidham Al-Bai'a).

The positive outcomes led to an increase in the current account surplus to Rls 338 billion in 2005 in comparison with a surplus of Rls 195 billion in the preceding year. In keeping with these developments, the money stock increased by 11.6 percent. These economic developments took place in an environment marked by stability in domestic prices. The cost of living index increased by less than 1 percent during 2005. It is expected that the positive results of the economy would continue at the same levels in this year, God willing. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, These positive economic developments were achieved in spite of surrounding challenges, internal or external. The composition of the Kingdom's population represents the most prominent challenge. The Saudi youth group (male and female), younger than 30 years, exceeds 60 percent of the Saudi population which entails continued extensive efforts to build Saudi nationals in scientific, health and intellectual terms to carry out their future development role in the best manner. Your direct attention to satisfy the current and future needs of the country and citizens has been embodied by Your directives providing for using a portion of the additional revenues realized due to  BIS Review 111/2006  1  improved fiscal balance in vital areas, at the top of which is the development of human resources as being the first pivot and ultimate goal of development.
By the middle of this century, the median age of the world population is expected to increase by 10 years to 36 years. Globally, the proportion of persons aged 60 years and older is forecast to double. The fastest growing group of the older population is made up of those who are 80 years old or more. This age category is projected to increase more than five-fold over the next 50 years. While ageing is indeed a global phenomenon, it is likely to represent a more onerous challenge for developing countries than for developed ones. The majority of persons aged 60 and over will be found increasingly in developing countries; and as the pace of population ageing is much faster in these countries, they will have less time to adjust to its effects than the developed countries. Developing countries, moreover, will have to meet this challenge starting from a lower level of socio-economic development. For instance, the elderly in developing countries will be living mostly in rural areas and hence will face additional difficulties compared to their counterparts in developed countries who tend to live in urban centres. These differences imply that the policymaking capacity of developing countries will be tested more severely. More specifically, there will be important decisions to take regarding social security schemes, particularly traditional pension systems in which today’s workers pay for the benefits of today’s retirees.

The fact that the European market is much more segmented than the North American market reduces the efficiency within the EU. Competition could be improved further throughout the whole of the EU. This is one of the areas where efforts will be made to contribute to improving productivity and growth within the EU to make the union one of the world's most competitive economies in 2010. At the moment, there remains much work to be done before this goal, which was established at the Lisbon meeting in 2000, can be achieved. Some small steps forward were taken at the Barcelona meeting last month. For instance, the countries agreed to open up the electricity and gas markets to corporate customers in 2004 and to open up the common air space by 2004. The single currency, the euro, could lead to stiffer competition as it will be easier for consumers and companies to compare prices of consumer goods and input goods in different countries when they are expressed in the same currency. The EMU could in the long term be expected to increase trade and integration between the member states. The studies that have been made indicate varying effects on trade from EMU membership for Sweden. Berkeley Professor Andrew K. Rose has estimated that Sweden's trade could increase by 30-50 per cent over the space of a few decades, which would lead to an increase in Swedish welfare of more than ten per cent in the long term.
Øystein Olsen: The economic outlook Speech by Mr Øystein Olsen, Governor of the Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), to invited foreign embassy representatives, Norges Bank, Oslo, 4 April 2013. The speech is based on the annual address 2013, Monetary Policy Report 1/13 and previous speeches. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. *  *  *  Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, First of all, I would like to welcome you to Norges Bank. Five years after the financial crisis started, growth is weak and unemployment high in many countries. The economic situation in Norway stands in contrast to developments abroad. Norway’s economy is still growing and unemployment remains low. There is a tendency to see ourselves as a country apart. Truly, Norway’s oil and gas resources provide an economic base that few other countries enjoy. Income levels are among the highest in the world. At the same time, our increasing dependence on oil and gas increases the vulnerability of the Norwegian economy. The theme of my presentation today is how to enhance the resilience of the Norwegian economy. When the financial crisis washed over the Norwegian banking sector in autumn 2008, we were reminded of how dependent we are on the world around us. Nonetheless, the Norwegian economy weathered the crisis well. After about a year, the downturn in Norway was over.

Should the outlook for the petroleum industry show a significant shift, Norway will have to start down the hard path of economic adjustment. The high level of costs in our country may become a hindrance in the competition for tenders and market shares. What we need above all is a profitable and efficient business sector that can adapt to new times. In that respect, there are some aspects of the Norwegian economy that give cause for reflection. Chart 9  On the surface, developments are positive. Nominal mainland GDP growth at current prices has been surprisingly stable. Over the past 20 years, nominal mainland GDP has increased by around 6 percent annually, and growth is still hovering around that trend. There were some tendencies towards overheating in the years prior to the financial crisis. But the correction that followed during and after the crisis has brought growth back to trend. There is little in this chart to indicate that the world economy has recently been through the most severe economic downturn in post-war history. The picture changes when growth is broken down into price and volume. As mentioned, high prices for domestically produced goods have supported our country’s income. Since 2005, producer prices have increased considerably faster than trend. This illustrates that mainland businesses have also benefited from the substantial improvement in Norway’s terms of trade. BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  Chart 10  Economic activity, on the other hand, slumped during the financial crisis.
Looking into the future, it is of course difficult to predict how these differences may evolve. The experience of the United States suggests that they will not disappear completely. The further development of the single market is likely to lead to some sources of divergence becoming less significant, while others may become more important. Divergences across countries will be monitored closely by the ECB but, given that monetary policy is geared towards maintaining price stability in the euro area as a whole, this means that other economic policies are required in circumstances where country or regional developments differ significantly, or over too long a period of time, from area-wide developments. In particular, this means that wage developments, backed by structural reform in labour and product markets, have a significant role to play while fiscal policy, within the framework of the Stability and Growth Pact, must also make a significant contribution. BIS Review 123/1999  4

To this end, the Bank promotes consumer awareness and financial literacy by disseminating information through quarterly media briefs, road shows, and attendance at annual agricultural shows and trade fairs. The Bank of Zambia also consolidates tariff guides of all deposit taking financial institutions and publishes this information in a form suitable to make immediate and easy comparisons. The purpose of this quarterly publication is to enable customers shop around in order to get value for money from services provided by banks and to cause banks to be competitive in the manner they set fees and charges. Further, through the activities of the Financial Sector Development Plan, the BoZ intends to spearhead the development of a national financial education strategy in order to galvanise the efforts of various stakeholders in the delivery of financial services. The Bank also publishes a lot of information on the banking sector and the economy in general on its website www.boz.zm. I wish to urge all consumers who may have access to the internet, to make it a habit to visit the Bank of Zambia website on a regular basis. Further, the Bank will provide excerpts from the Banking and Financial Services Act to provide some highlights on some of the consumer protection provisions in the Law. I thank you. 2  BIS Review 30/2010
In the development of Islamic financial instruments, the challenge is to develop innovative and more diverse Islamic financial structures that are not only able to accord flexibility to issuers in managing their distinct financing requirements but also able to meet investor’s demand in accordance with their risk and return preferences. At the international level, the successful issuance of the first sovereign global Islamic sukuk by the Government of Malaysia which attracted significant interest from a wide international investor base, acted as a catalyst for other countries and corporations to tap the international Islamic financial market and provided the impetus to the development of the International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM). The IIFM is entrusted with the task of creating an enabling environment that will encourage active participation by both Islamic and non-Islamic financial institutions in the secondary market for Islamic financial instruments. Strategic alliances such as those forged between IIFM, the Labuan International Financial Exchange and the Bahrain Stock Exchange will further pave the way for cross-border listing and trading of Islamic financial products. This will increase international investors’ access to Islamic financial instruments, enhance liquidity and spur the development of an Islamic capital market with greater global reach. Strengthening the foundations for the development of a sound, progressive and sustainable Islamic financial system The strengthening of the financial infrastructure is a key pre-requisite for the development of a dynamic and progressive Islamic financial system.

Discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate The minimum exchange rate has undoubtedly served Switzerland well during an exceptional period. However, the old adage popular among economists – “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” – holds true for monetary policy as well. The SNB Governing Board was well aware that the introduction of a minimum exchange rate would entail certain risks – and we consistently alluded to these. That the SNB would have to make large foreign currency purchases and expand its currency reserves in order to enforce the minimum exchange rate was thus to be expected. The SNB must be willing to bear these risks if doing so is necessary for the fulfilment of its legal mandate, and if these risks are justified given the chances of success. We enforced the minimum exchange rate consistently for more than three years (6 September 2011 to 15 January 2015). At the peak of the euro crisis in 2012, the SNB had to purchase CHF 188 billion of foreign currency. Adding this to purchases from prior years reveals that the SNB’s currency reserves rose from CHF 50.5 billion in 2007 to  1  In August 2011, the SNB announced that it would very significantly increase the supply of liquidity to the Swiss franc money market by expanding banks’ sight deposits at the SNB from CHF 30 billion to CHF 80 billion within a few days.
Risks will, I should be clear, persist from the international environment and, in particular, the pattern of international saving. If the Asian economies were to continue to save at an extraordinary rate but the Western economies increase their saving, as over time we must in order to repair national and sectoral balance sheets, longer-term risk-free rates could again fall in order to bring about the counterpart expansion in investment. And, although it may seem far-fetched right now, that could give an upward impetus to asset prices over the medium-term. We would need to be careful not to mistake any such future developments for a miracle improvement in underlying economic and financial conditions. Indeed, internationally, we need to learn lessons about brewing risks from medium-term imbalances. BIS Review 71/2009  1  The Bank’s policy response, and credit markets Alongside the Government’s actions to underpin the capital resources and funding of the banking system, the Bank’s policy actions have been designed to assist recovery in credit flows and nominal demand. The big downside risks to the outlook have warranted a substantial monetary stimulus, which the MPC has provided by bringing Bank Rate down to nearly zero, and by injecting a substantial amount of money directly into the economy. Speaking of course only for myself, I have so far preferred that approach to one where we would instead commit to keep Bank Rate low for a specified extended period.

Paul Tucker: The state of the markets – four issues Remarks by Mr Paul Tucker, Deputy Governor, Financial Stability, of the Bank of England, at the Association of British Insurers 2009 Biennial Conference, London, 9 June 2009. *  *  *  Many thanks for the invitation to be here today. The Bank greatly values its relationship with the insurance industry. We are just immensely grateful for the intelligence you provide, as asset managers and insurers; and for our constructive dialogue on policy issues. I have a few brief remarks on four broadly linked issues. The macroeconomic outlook and bank lending Since the beginning of the year I have felt that it will take until late autumn at least to have any kind of a handle on broadly what type of outlook we face. My view on that hasn’t really changed. Of course, over recent weeks near-term indicators, notably the business surveys, have improved a bit. Confidence seems to have stabilised. And that has been most obvious in the financial markets, where the really good news is that firms on both sides of the Atlantic have been raising funds in the equity and bond markets. But a sense of perspective is needed if those apparently small steps forward are not to be frittered away. Inevitably the medium-term outlook remains highly uncertain, and the path back to anything like normality can only be gradual I’m afraid.
We will soon discuss, as Mario Draghi said, the technicalities of our 2019 reinvestments to ensure market neutrality. But we should keep our options open about the timing of our reinvestment in the following years. In the face of uncertainty, one often hears reference to the celebrated Brainard 1 ‘conservatism principle’ (as reinterpreted by Alan Blinder 2. This is not, as the impression is sometimes given, a general warning to move cautiously when the world is uncertain. The Brainard ‘conservatism principle’ says only that you should move cautiously if you are uncertain about the effect of your policy instrument on your objective. But we should go beyond a static view of Brainard’s principle [which focuses on one single small step] a dynamic view would include the time dimension and consider how to manage and communicate a sequence of incremental steps. 2. Our collective challenge facing divergence: combining independence and co-operation The global economy continues to expand strongly but we are now seeing a strong divergence in performance. We have used a lot in the latest IMF-WEO forecasts, the nice French word « plateau » to describe global growth. But this “plateau” is not even: a strong acceleration in the US, even if it is temporary and fragile, offset by a moderation in growth in the rest of the G7. Some prominent emerging market economies are either expected to slow down rapidly or record only modest growth. In short we are moving from synchronized growth to economic divergence.

There are many indications that international economic activity will continue to strengthen in the period ahead and that resource utilisation will gradually pick up. High productivity growth and weak resource utilisation have kept down cost developments in a number of industrialised countries. Coupled with the increased integration of low-cost countries into world trade this has contributed to low global inflationary pressures. In the period ahead, price pressures are expected to remain modest even though they will increase as economic conditions improve and there is a reduction in spare production capacity. That means that market interest rates are also anticipated to rise from today’s unusually low levels. There are positive signals emanating from the US economy while the euro area, and notably Germany, has seen somewhat weaker growth than expected. (Figure 6.) Overall, growth in Sweden’s export markets is forecast to be largely the same as in the previous Inflation Report. The Swedish economic recovery began in 2003 and it is predicted to continue during the forecast period. In 2004 robust international demand for Swedish exports contributed to the high economic growth. Manufacturing activity now appears to be entering a slightly slower phase. Indicators and data point to a continuation of firm, healthy growth, albeit at a somewhat lower rate than in early 2004. Growth in domestic demand is assumed to increase while the contribution to aggregate demand from net exports will diminish. (Table 1). In 2005 business investment and private consumption are anticipated to account for the majority of the pick-up in demand.
Should authorities be doing more to address potential weaknesses in CCP risk management? As I just mentioned, the regulatory standards have been significantly strengthened since the financial crisis. However, catastrophic losses beyond those already covered by the regulatory requirements could still occur. Given the critical role of CCPs in financial markets, regulators need to think the unthinkable. Indeed, stress events concerning CCPs are – thankfully – rare: the most recent example of a CCP failure was the collapse of the Hong Kong Futures Exchange clearing house in 1987. A more recent – albeit less dramatic – stress event was the uncertainty caused by the default of a clearing member at KRX, the South Korean CCP, which caused it to tap its mutualised default fund, and revealed that clearing members were not always aware of their potential liabilities towards the CCP. When such events occur, they have the potential to shut down the markets they serve. With the emergence of supersystemic CCPs serving global derivatives markets, a CCP failure could be a catastrophic event of global proportions. In September 2014, the gross notional outstanding amount of centrally cleared positions was estimated at USD 169 trillion for OTC interest rate derivatives, and at USD 14 trillion for credit derivatives.7 The sheer magnitude of these figures (around ten times the GDP of the United States or European Union) gives us an idea of the severity of the potential consequences from a stress event at a major global CCP.

An example of a recent early prudential action occurred in June 2007, well before the recent financial turmoil aggravated: the Central Bank established a foreign exposure capital requirement for cross-border positions within international banking groups. In a nutshell, the Brazilian approach insulated its financial institutions from the sort of problems that is affecting counterparties abroad. In fact, it is no coincidence that our financial system has shown resilience and has been largely unaffected during the current financial turmoil. BIS Review 44/2009  1  The overall assessment on the Brazilian regulation framework, which was sometimes criticized on the grounds of excessive carefulness, is currently praised in international forums. For instance, the fact that Brazilian regulators have access to information from the clearing systems of all operations in the financial market is a factor of admiration and reference worldwide. Before closing, let me mention that I strongly welcome the recent enlargement towards emerging economies – including of course Brazil – of the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS). Emerging economies rapidly increasing weight in the global economy and global finances makes them an integral part of any viable solution to the current problems, as we are witnessing today in regard to their role in the G-20. The enlargement of forums in the area of regulation and financial sector supervision give more legitimacy to the discussion being held, with a view to design a new and more robust regulatory framework.