samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Ardian Fullani: Recent developments in the Albanian economy Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the press conference on monetary policy decision of the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania, Tirana, 30 September 2009. *  *  *  The Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania reviewed the Monthly Report of Monetary Policy, at its meeting of September 30, 2009. After getting acquainted with the latest economic – financial developments at home and at the conclusion of the discussions on their expected future performance, decided to keep the key interest rate unchanged, at 5.75 percent. This interest rate is in consistency with the maintaining of inflation close to the Bank of Albania target for a medium-term period. *** The analysis of the latest economic and monetary developments confirmed our expectations for an overall downturn of the economic activity at home and a reduction of the domestic inflationary pressures, for a relaxation of monetary markets and a slowing recovery of financial intermediation, and has also highlighted the still fragile equilibrium of the economic and monetary indicators. The conclusions of our discussions converged to a decision-taking to keep the key interest rate unchanged. The purpose of this position is to further maintain and consolidate the established balances, thus considering the macroeconomic stability as an indispensable precondition for a stable and long-term growth.

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Islamic finance – a global growth opportunity amidst a challenging environment Keynote address by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the State Street Islamic Finance Congress 2008 "Islamic Finance: A Global Growth Opportunity Amidst a Challenging Environment", Boston, 6 October 2008. *  *  *  This decade has witnessed the rapid evolution of Islamic finance. This has resulted in the dramatic transformation of the industry, from being focused on retail financing to providing an extensive spectrum of financial products and services, from being focused on the Muslim community to having an extended reach that serves the non-Muslim community, from being governed by conventional regulatory and accounting standards to having promulgated its own standards and finally from being domestic centric to becoming increasingly internationalised. The Islamic financial services industry has during this decade transitioned into a dynamic, fast growing and competitive form of financial intermediation servicing the global community. It is my honour and great pleasure to be here in Boston to participate in this inaugural State Street Islamic Finance Congress. With the recent evolution and expansion in Islamic finance, it has now emerged as a viable new asset class for investors and a competitive form of financing for businesses.
Page 1 of 4  Central Bank of Chile July 2020  •  Moreover, CLS improves the liquidity management of the financial institutions, particularly the banks that settle directly into the system, using an efficient multilateral net mechanism. •  Additionally, due to the high standards of currency eligibility and the efficiency of the operative process of settlement, when a currency is part of CLS it gives a strong signal of financial development. At the same time, important international players that only traded if the payment is performed through CLS can incorporate the Peso into their portfolios, thus increasing market competition. •  Finally, the CLS settlement of the Peso will improve the transparency of the currency markets’ transactions, incorporating over-the-counter transactions into an infrastructure, according to the international recommendations and principles. IV. Private sector involvement in the CLS system  •  An important part of the risk reduction and liquidity saving benefits is faced by the financial institutions participating in the system and, therefore, passing through to the rest of the financial markets, and ultimately to the users of the financial products, currency derivatives, and foreign exchange (FX) transactions. •  Moreover, as a financial market infrastructure, CLS interacts with other financial institutions, particularly with banks. At CLS, banks play different roles, such as Settlement Member, correspondent or Nostro service provider, and liquidity provider. •  The timely involvement of banks in the process is essential, considering the start of the implementation phase by the end of this year.

The private equity inflows which dominated in the earlier period fell sharply after the stock market crash, and were replaced by inflows into corporate and especially government bonds. A significant proportion of the demand for US government securities came from the official sector, notably Asian central banks, whose foreign exchange reserves have more than doubled since 2001. The fact that the US current account deficit has been funded at historically low and falling real interest rates suggests that the fall in US net savings may not have been the only – or even the main – driver of global imbalances. And while there are other possible explanations for the current low levels of global interest rates, it is certainly true that high saving relative to investment in East Asia has been an important counterpart of the US current account deficit. To be more specific, the rise in saving has outpaced the growth in investment in China, while domestic investment in the rest of East Asia remained stagnant after the Asian crises. Finally, last year’s doubling of oil prices in response to buoyant world demand has led to a further change in the pattern of imbalances, with the combined surpluses of oil producing countries now likely to equal half the US current account deficit, on the same scale as the combined Asian surplus. BIS Review 3/2006  1  How much of a threat might persistent imbalances on this scale pose to the world economy?
3  The Law on Developing the Ecosystem of Emerging Businesses, better known as the StartUps Law, was enacted with the aim of spurring entrepreneurship and R&D&I activity, to this end setting in place a range of tax and employment incentives for R&D&I, while also streamlining the administrative formalities for setting up new innovative firms. Meanwhile, the new Science Law has set a target for government funding of R&D&I at 1.25% of GDP in 2030. The second factor is the low level of Spain’s human capital, particularly in terms of its population’s technological expertise and digital skills, which has much to do with its limited capacity to innovate and absorb knowledge.8 Despite a notable improvement in recent decades, the educational attainment level of employers, the self-employed and employees in Spain is lower than the euro area average.9 Moreover, the high early school leavers rate, while clearly tending downwards, continues to point to weaknesses in the education system.10 In addition to boosting the level of human capital, it is essential in the current technological and demographic environment to ensure that the education system and vocational training cater to the far-reaching structural changes under way. On this subject, allow me to make four observations: 1 Encouraging the young to take more of an interest in vocational training would help cut the numbers leaving school early and ease the shortage of specialist technical workers.

Moreover, better supervisory oversight would also give us the agility to mitigate emerging risks before they materialize. Having said that, it must be acknowledged that we can’t regulate every aspect of the banking system. Ultimately, banks should assume prime responsibility for their actions and behaviors. Being dependent on public confidence, banks can ill afford to operate with weak corporate governance 4  or poor risk culture. This necessitates that banks maintain robust corporate governance standards, duly supported by strong internal controls, and prudent risk management. We are fully cognizant that these regulatory measures are costly for banks; nonetheless, costs of any financial crisis, both in financial and social terms, are far more substantial. Therefore, it is only wise and rational to strengthen the capacity of our banks in benign times. I believe our proactive approach has actually paid off, as banks in our region generally entered the low oil price environment from a position of strength. Yet banks’ resilience is not infinite and may come under severe pressure if necessary economic and structural reforms are dropped - or even delayed. Hence, we should not lose sight of the broader economic context in which our financial systems operate. After all, the banking sector is just a component of the overall economic landscape, though a very crucial one. While ensuring banking stability is critical, it is only a necessary condition for overall economic stability – and not a sufficient one.
While banks, as regulated, transparent and supervised institutions, play an important role in this objective, they are not the sole institutions. A no less important role play other institutions, especially those of tax collection or other institutions of services. Special attention should be paid to the supervision of market segments out of the banking system but within the scope of law. The terms of executing different payments, on a household or company level, should favour the usage of bank instruments (like electronic cards, wires, etc.) and in some transactions (where involved big amounts) payments in cash should be completely forbidden. There are exactly these transactions that may represent the biggest risk of money that is laundered from illegal activities, including fraud and tax evasion. I believe that the preference of holding cash money is deep in our society’s mentality and is also linked to a relatively low level of the average salary in the country. As a result, one can say with an appropriate level of confidence that most of the money that circulates in cash, is in the hands of many people, hence it represents a relatively low level of ML risk. We have also discussed about costs that are encountered when adopting full compliance with the requirements of the regulatory and the legal framework.

As is well known, this guardianship and scrutiny constitutes the core of the Central Bank’s legally mandated role, and the fact that the Bank should be assigned the task of containing inflation is not absurd, nor is it a function of obsession or blind fundamentalist belief that a particular aspect of economic policy implementation should take absolute priority over all others. Both in Iceland and in most other countries, there is abundant experience to support the conviction that inflation is extremely harmful if it becomes immoderately high. It becomes a serious problem if deviations persist, and it will cause important damage if it continues to grow and the Central Bank cannot contain it through conventional measures within a reasonable period of time. It is possible to advance theoretical support for the idea that the Central Bank alone could hold inflation down, but in order to do so the Bank would have to implement its measures with such force and rigidity that its actions might have an extremely negative effect on many other aspects of people’s lives. It is therefore vital that those who are most influential in determining Iceland’s financial and economic development pull together as one in order to fight rising inflation. Short-term interests and viewpoints must yield in favour of the greater goal.
Employees shall usually work in the best interests of the company, but can in some contexts have interests of their own that are in conflict with the company’s best. Divisional managers within a corporate group may have an interest in promoting their own division rather than the group as a whole. Company management does not always have the same aims as the shareholders. Many of these conflicts of interest are common and quite natural elements of real life, and rarely cause problems. It is important to bear this in mind when discussing methods of dealing with them. This does not mean that conflicts of interest in financial operations are irrelevant, quite the reverse. The relevant question here, however, is which conflicts of interest are real problems and which are not. The conflicts without problems are those where there is little incentive to improperly favour one interest over another. For instance, most employees are usually loyal to their employer - otherwise they risk losing their jobs. A company that does not take into account the interests of its employees and its customers risks gaining a bad reputation and losing its competitiveness. Other conflicts of interest are more problematic. When an agent has a considerable incentive to favour one party at the cost of another, there could be scope for some form of regulations. Many companies also have ethical guidelines and rules for dealing with the cases where there is most incentive to take other interests into account.

A clear example of this is contained in the conflict between traditional commercial banking and investment banking, which is my subject today. A bank that lends money to a company normally gains access during the credit application process to special information about the company - information that is not publicly available. The bank makes an investment in the information on the company and therefore usually has an information advantage in relation to other banks and outside parties. This  2  BIS Review 47/2004  investment can also mean that the bank can offer the company investment banking services in a more efficient manner. The fact that a company seeking funding in the capital market has access to bank credit is often regarded by the market as a positive signal. It means that a professional agent has analysed the company and found it creditworthy, i.e. been willing to risk his or her own capital in it. The information about the credit functions is a quality signal or a certification. At the same time, opportunities arise to make use of conflicts of interest when a bank functions as both credit-granting institution and adviser or guarantor in new issues. If the prospects for a company that has loans with the bank deteriorate, it may be in the interests of the bank to reduce some of its credit risk by aiding the company with a new share issue. In this way, the bank can pass on some of the credit risk to the shareholders.
Stable inflation expectations can also have a stabilising effect on exchange rate expectations, but growth in public expenditure and prices for Norwegian exports goods also have an influence on exchange rate expectations. Surveys conducted by TNS Gallup show that inflation expectations two and five years ahead have remained virtually unchanged over the past year. A selection of economists expect annual inflation to be about 2½ per cent five years ahead and somewhat lower two years ahead. Norges Bank has sought to counter a fall in inflation expectations. Through the first half of 2004, we stated: “With the current low level of inflation, it is appropriate to be particularly vigilant as regards developments in consumer prices.”1 At the monetary policy meetings between September and November, the Executive Board stated that “particular weight must be given to factors that may delay an increase in inflation.”2 Inflation picked up towards the end of the last year. When we became more confident that inflation would not continue to fall, but appeared instead to be picking up, we refrained from repeating this statement. 1  See Norges Bank press releases of 21 April and 26 May. The press releases following the monetary policy meeting of 17 December 2003, 28 January, 11 March and 1 July 2004 included similar formulations. 2  See Norges Bank press releases of 22 September and 3 November. 2  BIS Review 38/2005  Output and employment After slowing around the beginning of 2003, growth in the Norwegian economy picked up markedly through 2004.

And, of course, the need to communicate more frequently has also reflected the deviation from standard liquidity management practices. By extensively communicating about future refinancing operations and the general orientation of our liquidity policy, we have aimed to facilitate and accelerate the process of learning by banks about how we intend to implement monetary policy under the current conditions of market stress. Challenges for monetary policy implementation under stress As I will explain below, the current turmoil has also confronted us also with more general communication challenges, but let me first elaborate on some of the challenges that our liquidity management policy has faced during the recent turmoil. In normal times, the soundness of a central bank’s operational framework and the experience of both the central bank and market participants ensure that the implementation of monetary policy works smoothly. However, as I mentioned earlier, under stress conditions some of the principles usually guiding the implementation process may function differently. In this respect, particularly important for a central bank is the case of changes in the determinants of short-term interest rates. In normal times, the behaviour of the overnight rate is fairly well understood. In a system with reserve requirements, the possibility to average reserve holdings over a maintenance period supports a stabilization of short-term interest rates, because day-to-day fluctuations of liquidity conditions can be smoothed out over the remainder of the period.
The idea that is emerging is that SWFs would adopt such a code on a voluntary basis in an attempt to alleviate concerns in the most important mature market. At the October 2007 IMF/World Bank Annual meetings in Washington, the finance ministers and central bankers of the G7 countries discussed the issue in a private meeting with a number of leading SWFs. They subsequently stated that they “see merit in identifying best practices for sovereign wealth funds in such areas as institutional structure, risk management, transparency and accountability.” 24 Since then, G7 treasury officials have continued to engage with a number of leading SWFs. The US has called on the International Monetary Fund to try to identify possible best practices, noting that these should be modeled on best practices for managing international reserves. 25 So far, Ted Truman has developed  19  For example, Joaquín Almunia, the EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs summarised the general position of the European Commission as calling on SWFs operating in EU member countries to increase the transparency of their operations and investments. Interview with the Financial Times on 28 September 2007. 20  In Germany, legislation has been drafted that would enable the German government to veto any foreign investors intending to take a stake of 25% or more in a German company that may threaten national security; Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30 September 2007.

4  I am grateful to Benoit Coeuré of the French Treasury for this comment (see Coeuré, 2007). 5  Summers (2007) has a similar table which also includes countries that already have SWFs. 6  The Greenspan-Guidotti rule is based on the definition of a sufficient level of reserves as equal to the level of short-term foreign currency debt of the country. Excess reserves are calculated as reserves in excess of this level. 2  BIS Review 150/2007  Second, in terms of size, SWFs have become important financial market participants. The 14 largest SWFs are estimated to have approximately USD 2.2 trillion under management. 7 Some market estimates put combined assets as high as 3.5 trillion dollars. 8 The estimated combined assets of the world's 14 largest SWFs now constitute nearly half the size of the world’s total official foreign exchange reserves. 9 As I pointed out at the beginning, however, the assets of the world’s SWFs are still much smaller than the assets invested in mutual funds (USD 19.3 trillion) or global pension funds (USD 21.6 trillion). 10 Third, SWFs are likely to grow substantially in coming years. Market forecasts, which assume that high oil prices and the large current account surpluses in South East Asia will persist, project that SWFs will increase three to fivefold in nominal dollar terms over the next five to ten years. 11 My own view is that such simplistic linear forecasts will likely prove to have been flawed.
Close cooperation and sharing of cyber threat information will help organizations better monitor the development of cyber threats, recognize unfamiliar threats, and develop more comprehensive plans for dealing with such issues. Cooperation is also more than just information sharing: whether it is cooperation in terms of supervision, development of standards, cyber exercises, or capability building. These kinds of cooperation that would eventually create a “Cybersecurity Ecosystem” requires efforts from all sides, including governments, regulatory agencies, the private sector, and the education sector. It is very welcoming that today there are already a number of information sharing platforms available at the national, regional, and international levels. Thailand’s finance, banking, capital markets, and insurance industries have established a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for their respective industry. The teams share cybersecurity information on a daily basis. At the regional level, ASEAN has established the Cybersecurity Resilience and Information Sharing Platform (CRISP). The Central Banks, Regulators, and Supervisors (CERES) forum serves as a  3  platform for the international community. These collaborations on multiple levels present opportunities for countries to learn from one another. More recently, under our capacity as the 2019 ASEAN Chairman, Thailand has collaborated with the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) to organize the ASEAN Financial Regulators’ Program on Cyber Resilience, a series of training programs, the last of which concluded just yesterday. We envision that these Cyber Range collaborations will continue to be held for ASEAN members going forward.

But most forces in the country, especially the political ones, are directed towards higher growth rather than the sustainability or stable growth, even if in the end stability would probably lead to a better and higher level of the economy than the roller coaster growth of the past. To do that, the central bank will have to go against the rest of the economy and the government from time to time as has been evident in the past year or two. If the central bank is not independent, it will be very difficult to do this. In my mind, the best model of central banking is one where the central bank becomes a constitutional body of parliament just like the Election Commission or The National Frequency Management Board. This doesn’t mean that we have to change the constitution because the constitution differs from ordinary law mainly in so far as it supersedes ordinary law and the procedure for changing its  BIS Review 108/2000  2  provisions are rather complicated. By ordinary legislation, we could make the central bank a body of parliament or the senate which is what other new central bank legislations now usually do. This doesn’t mean either that the central bank will be operating monetary policy independent of the economic and social policy of the government.