Gent Sejko: Future Balkans - towards a global inclusion Speech by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the Tirana Economic Forum "Future Balkans: Towards a global inclusion" Leadership, Institutions and Policies Convergence 2017-2020, Tirana, 24 January 2018. * * *  Your Excellency Mr President, Your Excellency Deputy Prime Minister of Albania, Your Excellency Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Honourable Minister of Finance and Economy, My fellow Colleagues and Honourable Participants, It is a pleasure for me to participate at this Conference, convened to discuss on the importance of regional integration, which should be promoted by a forward-looking leadership and supported by the policies convergence. I believe that the dialogue that focuses on sharing our vision for the future, the convergence of perspectives about the challenges ahead of us, and identifying the objectives and drafting agendas for joint action, will be a fruitful dialogue to all of us. Policy convergence, both within and between countries, promotes efficiency and minimizes negative spill-overs. The role of institutions in the growth and development Institutions are the backbone of any modern society, in as much as they generate and implement laws, regulations and policies of development, thus laying out the rules of the game in a market economy. From a broader perspective, these rules should provide for a stable and transparent environment, thus enabling a predictable and long-term decision-making process. They should promote fair competition and equality of opportunities, and they should engender fairness and social cohesion.

By contrast, the New York Fed affirmatively decided to continue extending credit to Lehman Brothers’ broker-dealer. This decision was made to facilitate the broker-dealer’s orderly winddown. Then, when Barclays returned to the negotiating table on Tuesday, September 16, with an offer to purchase substantially all of the assets of Lehman’s brokerdealer, the New York Fed used this financing to facilitate a transition of certain broker-dealer operations from Lehman to Barclays. Once Judge Peck of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the arrangement at the end of the week, those operations were in Barclays’ hands. While there was nothing truly “orderly” about the Lehman bankruptcy, the New York Fed’s overnight financing of the Lehman broker-dealer avoided further market disruption. This piece of the overall Lehman story is rarely told, and yet it deserves attention. In contrast, Lehman Brothers International Europe (LBIE), the U.K. broker-dealer, was immediately placed into administration, its employees were sent home without paychecks, and the U.K. broker-dealer had no opportunity to wind down its positions. As such, its counterparties’ positions were likewise frozen, which created liquidity problems and significant market exposures as asset prices moved in the wake of Lehman’s failure. Conclusion In conclusion, let me say a few words about regulatory reform and the tools we had to work with. I mentioned earlier the guarantee tool that the Congress added when the EESA was enacted. Another important development is the Dodd-Frank legislation, which promises more effective comprehensive consolidated supervision of systemically significant organizations like Lehman.