•  While many firms in these sectors successfully upgraded themselves and became more efficient, there was a substantial reduction in the size of these sectors by the early 2020s. But the decisive turnaround in the quest for productivity came when services industries with a traditionally domestic orientation, like education and healthcare, re-positioned themselves by scaling up, investing in technology and talent, and exporting their services. The idea of Singapore as a Global School House was not new but it was pursued with renewed vigour and came to full fruition only during this period. Singapore positioned itself as a choice location for quality education for a growing Asian middle class. •  By 2025, international students studying in Singapore could be awarded joint degrees from 10 of the top 20 universities in the world. •  Singapore was well on its way to become the premier educational hub of Asia. Similarly, the healthcare sector was opened up. •  By 2025, Singapore had become a multi-faceted medical hub hosting the world’s top medical professionals and multi-national healthcare companies. •  This led to a vibrant ecosystem that created jobs in areas from research and training to conventions for medical professionals both locally and abroad, in addition to the large and diverse number of good jobs in hospitals. This third phase of Singapore’s economic history marked the most significant step-down in Singapore’s economic growth, with real GDP growing by 3.6% per annum. However, it also marked the painful but successful economic transition towards productivity-led growth.

Anita Angelovska-Bezoska: Statistical implications of the new financial landscape Remarks by Ms Anita Angelovska-Bezoska, Vice-Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at a panel discussion at the 8th IFC Conference “Statistical implications of the new financial landscape”, Bank for International Settlements, Basel, 8–9 September 2016. *  *  *  Contributors to the note: Ana Mitreska and Maja Andreevska. Since the burst of the crisis, central banking community has been providing unprecedented monetary stimulus with a view of influencing financial conditions and thus reviving the growth. The measures have gone far beyond the pre-crisis mode of operation. If conducting a monetary policy in the pre-crisis period seemed like steering a ship with rudder being enough powerful to protect against the waves, the waves that emerged in 2007–2008 were too strong and reliance only on the traditional instrument posed a risk of sinking. Thus, when the central banks approached/reached zero-lower bound, they were compelled to start experimenting with new policy tools such as balance sheet policies, forward guidance and in more recent period, even more extremely, with negative policy interest rate. Has this monetary accommodation served the purpose of influencing the financial and economic conditions? While there is ample evidence that the measures have succeeded in influencing financing conditions, so far there is not strong empirical evidence on their impact on output and inflation. In fact, despite the ample liquid and ultra-low interest rates, the output growth remains weak and inflation stubbornly low pointing to a weak monetary transmission mechanism.