samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The model that we are pursuing in Hong Kong is not only highly innovative, it also serves as a pilot that, if proved to be successful, would provide a good model for many countries in the world as an additional retirement support option that is financially viable and thus sustainable over the long run. 11. Thank you very much. 1 Figure for the first quarter of 2018. Source: Quarterly Report on General Household Survey (Q1 2018), Census  and Statistics Department. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches

Mr Lopes’ speech before the Economic Affairs Commission of the Federal Senate Summary of a speech by the new President of the Central Bank of Brazil, Mr Francisco Lopes, before the Economic Affairs Commission of the Federal Senate in Brasilia on 26/1/99. Translated from Jornal do Brasil of 27/1/99. Inflation I am sure inflation will not come back. Of course, there will be some adjustment in relative prices but there is no possibility of resuming the old inflationary process. We will have to put in place tight monetary policy and prevent any forms of indexation, opportunism or speculation. As the Brazilian economy is relatively closed - imports correspond to 8% of GDP - a devaluation of 50%, (i.e. the exchange rate stabilising at the very depreciated level of $ 1.80), would add about 4 to 5% to the rate of inflation. Overvaluation of the real The use of the exchange rate anchor made an exchange rate overvaluation inevitable. Nevertheless we had imagined it would be possible to shift from the mini-band regime to the free floating regime in a rather gradual way, while the economy was still attracting foreign capital. But reality sometimes frustrates the best intentions. With the benefit of hindsight (after the Asian and Russian crises), the widening of the exchange rate band in April last year, which widened the amplitude of the exchange rate fluctuation by 1% per year, was a rather timid movement. But it is easy to be wise after the event.
In spite of a limited rebound in credits recently, we believe there is little chance for this move to become a permanent recovery as long as the global economy is not stabilized (Figure 19). Figure 19: Commercial and Consumer Loans (4 Week Moving Average, Percent) 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 Commercial Credits -1.5  01 08  02 08  03 08  04 08  05 08  06 08  07 08  Consumer Credits 08 08  09 08  10 08  11 08  12 08  01 09  02 09  03 09  Source: CBT. Distinguished Members of the Press, In the first quarter of 2009, the sharp contraction in global economic activity and its larger than anticipated impact on domestic activity called for a downward revision of the outlook for aggregate demand developments from the previous reporting period. In the January Inflation Report, economic activity was expected to display a significant decline in the last quarter of 2008, while it was anticipated that the speed of contraction would start to lose pace during the first quarter of 2009. In line with expectations, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) displayed a sizeable drop in the last quarter of 2008 on a quarterly and on an annual basis (Figures 20 and 21). Recent readings suggest that economic activity will display a sharperthan-envisaged slowdown and that the contraction in the economy in the first quarter of the year will register double-digit figures.

Gent Sejko: Albania's economic and financial developments in 2019 Speech by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, during the presentation of the Annual Report of the Bank of Albania for 2019 in the Albanian Parliament, Tirana, 2 July 2020. * * *  Honorable Mr. Speaker of the Assembly, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me thank you for the invitation and the opportunity you have given me to present to you the Annual Report of the Bank of Albania for 2019. In general, I find that the work of the Bank of Albania has had a positive contribution to strengthening the monetary and financial stability of the country. This stability is a necessary precondition for the sustainable and long-term development of the country. Also, the Bank of Albania has fulfilled its other legal duties, has made progress in the implementation of the Medium Term Development Strategy, and has implemented the recommendations left by the Albanian Parliament. *** In accordance with the legal framework in force, the main objective of the work of the Bank of Albania is to achieve and maintain price stability. 1. Albanian economy and monetary policy during 2019 2019 was a challenging year for the Albanian economy. Economic activity continued to benefit from rising private consumption and the rapid expansion of tourism. However, the foreign environment proved to be unfavorable, while the decline in electricity production, the gradual termination of investments in major energy projects, and the November earthquake had strong negative effects.
That policing can be achieved through penal interest rates. But we can see no monetary policy issue in relation to intra-day credit. The extension of sterling intra-day liquidity in our present domestic RTGS system is of no interest to, and never considered in the context of, monetary policy decisions. The same holds for all other countries. Indeed we could go further and say that denying even-handed access to TARGET through out central banks will negate one of the main purposes of the whole exercise, to reduce the risk inherent in systems in which banks are exposed to each other for a period of hours. Banks would find other ways round the restriction which would be more risky. So central banks across Europe will have scored an own goal. We shall need to look carefully at this issue as we move towards 1999. If restrictions were to be applied to out central banks which made TARGET unattractive to banks in London, thereby encouraging them to use less secure cross-border mechanisms for euro payments, then we shall need to think about the other options we could adopt. One possible option might be to develop our own euro RTGS arrangements to allow quick, efficient and safe euro payments within the UK which would not rely on access to intra-day credit from the euro area. We would prefer a pan-European solution which, we strongly believe, would be in the interests of the EU as a whole in the long run. But one thing is clear.

I want to pay tribute to Helmut Schmidt, one of the greatest Europeans, who said clearly in Frankfurt in October 2011: “There was a failure to  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  set the economic rules of the game for the currency union. A powerful authority with responsibility for fiscal and economic policy was not set up.” 1 In that spirit, I speak today as a committed European and a contributor to EMU since its outset, as well as a Member of the ECB Governing Council. Some of the ideas I will elaborate upon were put forward in my February joint paper with Jens Weidmann, even though what I will say today does not necessarily represent his views or those of other colleagues of the ECB or, naturally, those of the French government. While such ideas to enhance economic governance are not all new, their implementation is tricky: this will be the main thrust of my speech. Shifting from ideas to action is urgent if central banking is not to remain the only game in town. For this reason notably, central bankers can legitimately contribute to the debate. Yet, taking action will obviously be a decision for political leaders. This issue has already generated many prominent contributions: for instance Jean-Claude Trichet 2 in 2011 advocated the need for a European finance minister; Mario Draghi 3 called, in early 2015, for a “quantum leap” in European integration and institutional convergence and Ignazio Visco 4, last November, wished parallel and decisive progress on political Union.
11  Page 12 of 19  The long-distance run towards the stabilisation phase We are now entering a new, slower, longer and more open phase. After the sprint comes the long-distance run. Expectations are continuing to focus, excessively in my view, on our speed: are we going to continue our 50-basis-point hikes after March? I shall not answer that today, first because our decisions over the coming months will be guided by the data. Above all, it is also because there are two more important variables in this new phase: the level of interest rates that we reach, and the duration for which we stay there. The level of the “terminal rate” Regarding the level, the markets’ estimate of the “terminal rate” was, until the last few days, around 3.5% in the euro area. The fluctuations since yesterday may be excessively volatile, but I shall just make one comment here on the calendar and another on the substance. Regarding the calendar, without setting ourselves any strict time limit, I think it is possible that we will have reached this peak by summer... which officially ends in 12  Page 13 of 19  September. That would leave us four Governing Council meetings, after the one in March where we will have reached 3%. We shall probably go beyond this 3%, but there will be no obligation to act automatically at each Council meeting, and we are not ruling out acting subsequently if new elements justify it.

We have promised to keep the CP scheme under review and give 12 months notice before it is withdrawn. Corporate bonds A corporate bond scheme was also set up last year. In January 2009, the primary market was open for new bond issuance, but spreads over gilts were extremely wide, and were widening further as issuance increased (Chart 4). It was clear there was a substantial  4  BIS Review 23/2010  liquidity premium in the market. Secondary market liquidity was notoriously poor for sterling denominated bonds. The small size of the bond market, relative to euro- and dollardenominated markets, meant that many individual sterling-denominated bonds might not trade for months at a time. There was a risk that secondary market illiquidity might have restricted the strength of the primary market, so constraining the availability of credit. Most corporate bonds are bought by asset managers for long-term investment, but investors do need to actively manage their portfolios e.g. for duration and credit risk. The scheme was designed to meet this need by offering to buy small amounts of bonds in the secondary market on a regular basis. There were two immediate aims. First, by regularly posting traded prices, it was hoped to improve the process of price discovery and hence aid secondary market liquidity. Second, by offering a bid in the secondary market, the scheme should encourage further private sector demand in the primary market. That leaves open the question of whether we could or should have been trying to buy much larger quantities.
That there are problems cannot, however, be denied. They have to do, for instance, with the prevailing conditions for world trade and how the resultant gains are to be distributed. Another issue is the free movement of capital, which played an important part in the positive economic trend in the 1990s but has also contributed to a situation where economic unrest spreads more quickly from country to country and is sometimes a major ingredient of financial crises in developing countries. Then there is the question of how the international financial organisations have functioned and the problem of debt in certain poor countries. These are some of the issues I shall now discuss. The globalisation debate Trade is crucial The first issue is about trade. The critics argue that the expansion of world trade to include more countries as well as additional goods and services leads to the poorest countries being marginalised — developing countries are unable to compete with the wealthy nations in this process. Some consider it would be better for the poorest countries to close their borders and build up their own industries. They would then be in a stronger position when perhaps they are ultimately incorporated in the world economy. A similar policy was advocated by some in the 1960s and ’70s and it was implemented in various guises in many countries, for instance in Latin America. But the subsequent course of events provides strong arguments against such an approach; isolationism has not been a good way of generating prosperity.

Our sights should be raised instead to achieve an order whereby those who are worst off benefit more than others, so that gaps in the world are narrowed. Today I shall begin with some reflections about the concepts of democracy and market. I am prompted to do so in that those who arranged this seminar first asked me to speak about “a democratic world economic order”. Then I shall concentrate on some of the issues of a mainly economic nature that have featured in the debate in recent years on globalisation. In doing so I will be drawing on some of my personal experience of economic cooperation. Then I shall sum up and draw some conclusions. Democracy and markets In my opinion there is no contradiction between democracy and markets. It is rather the case that they are two complementary components of a viable social system. A market economy is the form for organising economic activities that in almost every situation has proved superior to other alternatives, such as a centrally planned economy. Democracy is seen today as the self-evident form for political decision-making. One of the points about a market economy is that it allows for decentralised decisions about economic matters — agents can conclude agreements that are mutually beneficial. Political intervention is normally warranted only when a third party stands to lose. However, such situations are relatively common, for instance in environmental questions.
If confirmed, this would be bad news for the European economy that needs investment following years of underinvestment in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Moroever, the question is how the financial sector would react. What exactly do you mean by that? The financial sector often tends to act procyclically. Banks are a case in point, because they tend to amplify cyclical developments. When the economy is performing well, they are willing to grant credit, but when it is faltering, they are not so keen. Do you see such a risk at present? As far as the capital markets are concerned, credit risk premia have increased significantly over the past months – for both high and low credit-rated firms. That tightens borrowing conditions for firms on capital markets and weighs on the economy. On the other hand we have so far not seen any such tightening in bank lending conditions in the euro area. Overall, in light of these developments, we consider that the probability of a recession remains low. But are you worried that that will change, that the banks will tighten conditions too? Banks in the euro area now hold much more capital than before and are better able to withstand shocks. They also have larger liquidity buffers. That’s all good news. At the same time, bank equity prices have fallen sharply and profitability is often very low, as is also reflected in the banks’ very low price-to-book ratio of around 50%.

Peter Praet: Interview in Börsen-Zeitung Interview with Mr Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, in Börsen-Zeitung, conducted by Mr Detlef Fechtner and Mr Mark Schrörs on 11 February 2019 and published on 18 February 2019. * * *  Mr Praet, how badly is the euro area economy doing? We have lately seen a marked increase in the risks for the euro area economy. That is why we revised our assessment at the last meeting of the ECB’s Governing Council in January. We see the constellation of risks surrounding the economic outlook, in other words the balance of risks, as tilted to the downside. That is a significant change in our communication and reflects concerns about the general economic situation. At the same time, however, we said that our baseline scenario has so far remained intact. In March we will have new macroeconomic projections from ECB staff and we will then re-examine our assessment. The December projections for 2019 to 2021 forecast growth of 1.7%, 1.7% and 1.5% and a gradual rise in inflation to 1.8% in 2021 – so approaching the ECB’s target rate of below, but close to, 2%. That surely can’t be upheld now, can it? I expect that the projections for the near term, in particular, will be revised downwards. The data since December have been much weaker than I had expected. But our discussion in the ECB’s Governing Council does not focus so much on the short-term perspective.
In this spirit the ECB has been reviewing its monetary policy operations over the past year. The enlargement eastwards will entail a new, formative stage. I would gladly work actively to achieve increased clarity and transparency within the ECB if the result of the referendum is a “yes” vote. Is a national stabilisation policy necessary? The risk that Sweden could end up in a different situation from the rest of the euro area, and that this would cause serious economic policy problems, has been strongly highlighted in the Swedish discussions, much more so than in other countries where the monetary union has been discussed. The reason for this is, of course, the severe crisis that occurred at the beginning of the 1990s, with the collapse of the krona in 1992, which had such a tangible effect on the lives of many in Sweden. In my opinion, there is a tendency to overestimate the risks that developments in Sweden will differ substantially from the rest of the world and require unique stabilisation policy measures. When we have differed from other countries previously - such as during the crisis years of the early 1990s - this has usually been the result of conducting a different economic policy; of not having control over inflation or focussing on stability, as the core EMU countries did. However, there now appears to be a consensus that economic policy should be aimed at long-term stability and that this policy should stand firm.

Importing the stability-oriented policy that had long been conducted in the EMU's core countries helped to create better conditions for future growth. The policy model we now follow comes originally from Germany. During the entire post-war period they have endeavoured, to a great extent successfully, to maintain price stability. The task of achieving this has fallen to the German central bank - the Bundesbank - which has operated independently, at arm's length from party politics. The Bundesbank model is now copied by a number of industrial nations, which have given their central banks a large degree of independence and the task of aiming for price stability. This policy is also reflected in the Maastricht Treaty and in the Riksbank legislation. My colleagues in the major industrial nations also try - as long as they are sure that inflation is not about to deviate from the desired level to take account of economic activity and unemployment. There are thus considerable similarities and this applies not only in Europe, but also in a comparison with, for instance, the US, although the stipulated targets vary, sometimes for historical reasons. In this sense we are all the children of the Bundesbank! Within the central bank world the methods of working have also become more similar in recent years. Although not all industrial nations with a floating exchange rate say that they use inflation targeting, they actually do so in some form.
In Q2 this year, there are around 8.7 and 3.2 million agreements in Internet and mobile banking, respectively, of which 43 and 24 million transactions in volume that cost approximately 5,000 and 306 billion baths. Some banks, therefore, strategically reduce the role of branches, intentionally pay attention to Virtual Banking Concept, to efficiently reciprocate the target customers and to facilitate international businesses that tend to grow due to trends of globalization and economic integrations. The growth of IT investments and sophisticated products as well as advanced services in banking industry comes with a concern on “security ”, which is the challenging key to propel the sustainability of such a growth. In our role as central bank, we put “security” as our first priority align with standard setting to promote advancement of banking services. ii. The role of central bank (BOT)  What is our role? We have aimed at setting standards to create domestic and international banking networks as well as to promote banking and payment system stabilities by developing access to financial services including financial infrastructure for cross-border payment and IT systems or other innovations aligned with security. In terms of cross-border innovation, the Bank of Thailand in association with the ASEAN central banks established the Working Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems:  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  WC-PSS in 2010 to study payment and settlement system environments in member countries and to present regional strategic plans in order to serve economic integration in 2015.

Third potential impact: the launch of a CBDC could also raise questions related to modalities of access to central bank balance sheet. - Depending on its attractiveness and detailed specifications, a CBDC could trigger a demand from financial actors which usually do not have access to central bank money (money market funds, investment funds, insurance companies …) to be able to settle in CBDC. It would in particular be the case in a broader wholesale CBDC access scenario. The remuneration of the CBDC held by these financial actors – in case access were to be granted – would also matter for monetary policy implementation, as it would play the role of a ceiling for these institutions on the money market. - Beyond these settlement and detention aspects, expanding the counterparty framework (i.e. for central bank refinancing or asset purchases operations) as a response to the implementation of CBDC does not strike me at this stage as being particularly useful nor necessary. In any case the usual requirements related to counterparty eligibility criteria, including financial soundness assessment and supervision, would need to be taken into account. To conclude these introductory remarks, let me stress three points: - Digitalization is a major supply/technology shock, whose implications are multifaceted, and which have been intensified and accelerated by the Covid crisis - As central banks, in the context of our monetary and financial stability mandate, we have a role to play to make sure that digitalization becomes a blessing and not a curse.