samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Second, the objective of the IMF should be to find ways of making the least costly fiscal adjustment in terms of growth, while strengthening its recommendations on the prevention of this type of shock. This brings me to focus on the second type of objectives: the objectives of prevention and better resilience to terms of trade shocks. The first priority to improve prevention and resilience is to create sufficient countercyclical fiscal leeway, by limiting public debt, or even by accumulating budgetary reserves. In this regard, controlling the public payroll, which is the most dynamic item of expenditure in times of growth in many poor and vulnerable countries, as well as improving the efficiency of public spending, are essential. Consideration should also be given to setting up fiscal rules on the basis of deficits excluding commodity-related receipts, adopting stricter debt ceilings for the public sector and creating an adequate savings buffer for countercyclical purposes, taking into account the scale and length of commodity price cycles. In countries exporting non-renewable commodities, in particular oil, this savings buffer must be even more substantial since it must aim to cover not only the decline in the value of receipts but also part of the decline in the value of reserves. The second priority concerns the diversification of the economy. Industrial policies based on sectoral subsidies or tax expenditures are not viable in the event of a fall in commodity prices and make the policy of diversification pro cyclical.

changes in the relative prices of exports compared to imports: this is the theme of today’s conference. The subject chosen is highly topical, following the very sharp drop in commodity prices, in particular oil prices, between mid-2014 and early 2016, the effects of which on exporting countries had been underestimated, both by the countries themselves, but also by the international financial community. Thus, the economic growth forecasts for sub-Saharan Africa made by the main international organisations were revised downwards only very late. In January 2016, the IMF still expected Sub-Saharan Africa to grow by 4% in 2016 and by 4.7% in 2017, but the forecasts in the October 2016 global economic outlook were only 1.4% for 2016 and 2.9% for 2017, almost solely as a result of the recession in the oil economies. The Ivorian economy is another illustration of the importance of the terms of trade for economies focused on commodities. After experiencing exceptional growth over the last three years, partly driven by the good performance of cocoa prices, contrary to that of other commodities, activity appears to have slowed down, in the wake of the downturn in prices. The subject is also of major importance for central banks because the challenge here is to find how to implement appropriate counter-cyclical policies in the face of large-scale shocks that monetary policy cannot deal with either on its own or in the long run.
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka also had to consider domestic developments, such as the depreciation pressure on the currency due to capital outflows and the widening trade deficit, subpar economic growth, deceleration in monetary aggregates and credit, moderate levels of inflation as well as continuing deficit liquidity conditions in the money market. The tight monetary policy stance pursued by the Central Bank, since end 2015, by way of raising the Statutory Reserve Ratio (SRR) and policy interest rates yielded the desired outcomes, especially on demand driven inflation and trends in money and credit aggregates compared to 2016 and 2017. Such developments, in particular, the favourable developments in inflation, inflation outlook and the trends in the monetary sector, in an environment of lackluster growth performance, induced the Central Bank to signal the end of the tightening cycle in early April 2018, by way of reducing the Standing Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) by 25 basis points. Nevertheless, global economic 12  conditions and the pressure on the exchange rate has compelled the Central Bank to maintain a neutral monetary policy stance since April 2018. In the conduct of monetary policy, market based policy tools, particularly policy rates and open market operations (OMOs) were widely used, while the SRR was also used as a tool of injecting liquidity to the market on a permanent basis.

Further, several measures are in the pipeline, including the issuing of regular Monetary Policy Reports, which will be developed into Inflation Reports in the future and expanding the public awareness outreach programme, which will be implemented during next two years as set out in the road map for FIT. As another important step, we re-commenced publishing an advance release calendar for regular monetary policy announcements last year. Continuing this practice, we wish to present the advance release calendar for monetary policy announcements for the year 2019 as set out below. 21  Monetary Policy Announcements in 2019 Announcement No. Date of Announcement  1  22 February, Friday  2  10 April, Wednesday  3  31 May, Friday  4  12 July, Friday  5  23 August, Friday  6  11 October, Friday  7  15 November, Friday  8  27 December, Friday  Currently, although the global economy is somewhat less robust than it was in the first half of 2018, the pace of global growth remains strong pointing to further normalisation of monetary policy in major economies. This has necessitated most emerging market economies to adjust their monetary policy in view of addressing economic imbalances associated with capital flows, currency depreciation, trade wars, etc. Taking such trends into consideration and responding to domestic economic developments, we will continue to remain vigilant in formulating our monetary policy to ensure sustained economic and price stability in Sri Lanka. 22  3.
Már Guðmundsson: Iceland – recent economic developments, conditions and outlook Keynote address by Mr Már Guðmundsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, at the 51st Annual General Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland, Reykjavik, 29 March 2012. *  *  *  Prime Minister; Minister of Finance; Chairman; Directors and Ambassadors; Ladies and Gentlemen: As we convene for the 51st Annual General Meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland, the economic recovery that began late in 2010 is gaining momentum in spite of international headwinds, while inflation has been higher and more persistent than was considered likely last year. It is important, too, to note that inflation is driven much more strongly by domestic factors than it was around this time last year, with wages rising in excess of increases in productivity and the nominal exchange rate declining in the recent term. According to preliminary estimates, GDP grew by 3.1% in 2011. In international terms, this compares well, as output growth in the OECD averaged 2% last year. However, it should be borne in mind that the economic recovery began later in Iceland than in most OECD countries. Business investment and private consumption contributed equally to growth, about 2 percentage points each. The contribution from factors was negative, however. This growth was not borrowed, either: last year’s underlying current account surplus measured roughly 3% of GDP. In some respects, the composition of last year’s output growth lays a sound foundation for continued economic recovery.

And in closing, I wish to say this: We have a tendency to give little thought to our important economic and societal infrastructure until it gives way. This is true of electricity and heat utilities, water and sewage systems, and matters such as payment intermediation. But fortunately, we have specialised groups of people who monitor such systems, and within the Central Bank and its subsidiary, Greiðsluveitan, is just such a group specialising in payment intermediation. The banking crisis put domestic payment intermediation to the test. The system passed that test, although banknote inventories were very slim at one point. Since then, significant work has been done to enhance payment intermediation security and to learn from the weaknesses that came to the fore during the crash. In 2011, changes were implemented in the banks’, savings banks’ and Central Bank’s decades-long joint ownership and operation of payment intermediation infrastructure, which is now solely in the hands of the Central Bank. In addition to improvements in security, emphasis has been placed on enhancing transparency and disseminating information on payment intermediation. In part for this purpose, the Bank has issued two reports on payment card transactions: a report on credit card transactions, issued in 2011, and a recent report on debit card transactions. We hope that both of these reports will increase all stakeholders’ knowledge and understanding of the payment card market and will highlight the items in need of improvement.
In parallel, all programme countries have strengthened their active labour market policies, including by fostering traineeship programmes and dual-apprenticeship systems, also with the support of EU funds. This is important, as having an adequate social safety net and job search and retraining programmes can reduce unemployment duration and so lower the long-term costs of an adjustment phase. There is also a fairness dimension: we should not forget that some citizens paid high entry costs to enter previously closed professions, for example by purchasing expensive licences, and may now need help transitioning to new employment. Product market reforms have generally aimed at improving competition in network industries – energy, telecommunication, transport – and highly regulated professions, as well as reducing administrative (licencing) burdens to wholesale and retail trade and provisions of services. Such reforms have tended to face greater implementation obstacles than labour market measures, partly owing to the micro or sector-specific dimension of the reform needs. 1  Blanchard, O., F. Jaumotte, and P. Loungani (2013), “Labor Market Policies and IMF Advice in Advanced Economies During the Great Recession”, IMF Research Department. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  This has required policymakers to confront more concentrated opposition from vested interests within the sector that is subject to reform. However, among programme countries, Portugal has some impressive achievements to show in terms improving product market functioning and economic framework conditions.

The first phase began with the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Here the euro area shared in a global liquidity crunch that was largely imported from abroad. The second phase began in May 2010 with a sovereign crisis that was localised in the euro area, and that was partially exported to the world economy. This second phase was arguably the more pernicious for monetary union. The re-pricing of sovereign risk in the euro area spread from Greece to other vulnerable economies, and from sovereign to private debt and vice versa. In the process, the liquidity crunch morphed into a systemic crisis for the banking sectors of a number of member countries, and for the integrity of monetary union as a whole. The traditional exposure of banks in vulnerable countries to their own sovereign issuers became a quick carrier of  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  financial contagion as their sovereign bond holdings depreciated and eroded their capital in the eyes of creditors. This adverse sovereign-bank feedback loop interacted with existing vulnerabilities. Countries with persistent competitiveness losses and associated large current account deficits – as was the case of Portugal – were particularly sensitive to a reversal in external financing. This was exacerbated by capital flight to core economies which started to deplete banks’ deposits in the most vulnerable countries.
However, voices have raised the concern that, in light of the ever-increasing cost of safety and against the background of the significant cost pressure due to deteriorating market conditions, investment in resilience might in fact be increasingly limited. But, as I said before, the higher requirements for operational reliability, for contingency planning and for crisis management stem mainly from the financial industry’s own development. Clearly, increasing concentration, geographic clustering, connectivity and interdependency are highly beneficial, but they do also have a price when it comes to the reduction of risk. We cannot enjoy the benefits without paying this price. The point here is that we all have to be very careful about how we invest in resilience. And we have to make sure that no resources are wasted. For sure, the regulatory community will keep this in mind and will do its best not to impose unnecessary burdens on the private sector. Summary and conclusion Finally, let me sum up my main points. •  Today’s globalized financial industry shows impressive long-term value growth. This growth is due to market integration and technological progress. Together they led to sizable reductions in transaction costs and to expanding markets. •  Every transaction eventually leads to a transfer of money. From trade to settlement usually at least one system of financial market infrastructure is involved. Overseers care for the safety of these systems. This is their responsibility. •  The events of September 11, 2001, made the industry, the regulators and the overseers rethink their approach to safety.

Today almost every country is operating an RTGS system. There is now a widespread consensus within the private sector and the central banking community about the kind of operational requirements and financial risk controls that are necessary to make a payment system safe. A main contributor in this area has been the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). As a standard-setting body the CPSS has, for instance, drafted the Core Principles for Systemically Important Payments Systems. The Core Principles are a testimony of the consensus about standards for safety and efficiency in payment systems. The CPSS has also played a leading role in raising the awareness of the risks involved in the settlement of foreign exchange transactions. It has also followed and to some extent promoted the CLS project since its beginning. The safety of the clearing and settlement infrastructure has been a long-standing concern of the overseers. Together with the financial industry they might even have enjoyed some pride while looking at what was achieved in terms of efficiency as well as safety and soundness of operations by the industry. But clearly, since September 11, 2001, a new awareness of vulnerability has grown on us all. Those tragic events have made us rethink our approach vis-à-vis safety and operational risk. I think we all suddenly realized we had to reassess the vulnerability of our institutions and systems and, where necessary, improve their resilience.
Mr. Carse reports on the initiatives taken concerning financial industries in Fujian, Hong Kong and Taiwan Speech by the Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Mr. David Carse, at the Symposium on the Financial Exchange and Cooperation of Fujian, Hong Kong and Taiwan, held on 8/8/98. I am pleased to be here this morning to welcome you to this Symposium. The Chinese Banks’ Association is to be congratulated for organizing this important initiative with the co-sponsorship of the Fujian Provincial Government and Chinatrust Commercial Bank. The idea of the Symposium, as I understand it, is to facilitate the exchange of ideas concerning the financial industries in the three regions and the exploration of cooperative opportunities between them. 2. Such an initiative could not have come at a better time. The current financial crisis is creating havoc among the Asia economies. Initially, the damage was felt in the financial sector. But the full impact is now being seen in the real economy as output and trade are crippled by higher interest rates, the burden of foreign currency borrowing and the credit crunch. The Mainland of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have survived the crisis in better shape than most other economies in the region. But they have not been unaffected as events of this week have demonstrated in Hong Kong where we have witnessed further speculative pressure on the Hong Kong dollar. 3.

of active scrutiny of the market, of shareholders and of creditors, which implies a continual strengthening of transparency. It is this latter aspect, relating to Pillar III, which is the least well-known, although it is that with the greatest potential in the medium term for disseminating best practices in risk management. Of course, the completion of Basel II is only the beginning of the implementation process, and not just in credit institutions, but also in their supervisors. In this respect, I believe that our institutions and our supervisory model are in a magnificent position to lead the implementation process insofar as quality is concerned. And this process will yield better managed institutions and more effective supervision. These two key regulatory issues raise other points. First, the development of IAS and Basel II make it necessary to strengthen international co-operation in supervision and regulation. The international expansion of Spanish banking and its presence in a larger number of jurisdictions with differing features raise the need to establish closer bilateral relations with the authorities of other countries, so as better to comply with the respective responsibilities. In addition, the new European legislation on financial conglomerates also addresses in depth the need for greater co-operation. Specifically, the EU has opted for a solution based on co-operation between supervisors as the most appropriate (and essential) approach.
In Friedman, Milton (1960), A Program for Monetary Stability, Fordham University Press, he writes, for example: “[T]he central problem is not to construct a highly sensitive instrument that can continuously offset instability introduced by other factors, but rather to prevent monetary arrangements from themselves becoming a primary source of instability”. 21  See Ejven, Snorre and Thea B. Kloster (2012), “Norges Bank’s new monetary policy loss function – further discussion”, Staff Memo No. 11, 2012. What Norges Bank has done, more specifically, is to introduce a criterion that monetary policy should be “robust”. What this means in practice is that monetary policy should try to prevent financial imbalances from arising. 22  See for example Orphanides (2004) in footnote 18, who notes that: “The subtle policy change in 1979 reflected a shift to more modest but attainable goals. Reducing the excessive emphasis on stabilizing the level of economic activity around its uncertain potential and concentrating instead on the inflation outlook for policy guidance provided the foundation for stable sustainable growth”. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  whether monetary policy should be expansionary or contractionary, but merely about exactly how expansionary it should be. The repo rate has been low ever since the crisis, and it is still low. One type of criticism is that the majority has not been consistent, but has referred to a number of slightly different arguments to justify the somewhat less expansionary policy.23 There may be something in this.

Suppose one would have claimed at that time that inflation from 1995 and seventeen years onwards would be on average just below 2 per cent and much more stable, and that growth during this period would not be lower than before, but on the contrary somewhat higher. I am pretty sure that one would have been met with considerable scepticism. And very few would probably have characterised a monetary policy that contributed to this as unsuccessful. This is a rather different picture than the one on which the criticism of tens of thousands of “lost jobs” is based. The latter instead appears to view the relatively limited undershooting of the target as a major failure, without any real mitigating circumstances. It also appears to assume that the Riksbank for some reason has intentionally and systematically aimed to attain a lower inflation rate than the 2 per cent it has itself set as the target. It is difficult to see the logic in such behaviour. And it is definitely not something that I recognise after working at the Riksbank at various times over the past fifteen years. Wages not necessarily based on incorrect expectations There are also other objections to the criticism that monetary policy should have cost tens of thousands of jobs. One reason claimed for the unnecessarily high unemployment is that real wages, that is, wages adjusted for inflation, have been higher than they would otherwise have been if inflation had been on target.
Furthermore, the most recent data confirm the positive underlying momentum of economic activity in the euro area, while uncertainty remains elevated. Overall, our monetary policy stance remains accommodative, lending support to economic activity. On balance, risks to the outlook for price stability are on the upside. Accordingly, strong vigilance is warranted. On the basis of our assessment, we will act in a firm and timely manner. We will do all that is needed to prevent recent price developments giving rise to broad-based inflationary pressures. We remain strongly determined to secure a firm anchoring of inflation expectations in the euro area in line with our aim of maintaining inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. This is a prerequisite for monetary policy to make an ongoing contribution towards supporting growth and job creation in the euro area. Turning to fiscal policies, all parties involved in the preparation of the 2012 national budgets must ensure that they are fully in line with the requirement to support confidence in fiscal policies. A comparison between the latest economic forecasts by the European Commission and the fiscal plans embodied in the stability programmes points to the need for many countries to underpin their budget targets with concrete consolidation measures in order to correct their excessive deficits by the commonly agreed deadlines. The implementation of credible fiscal adjustment strategies is crucial in view of ongoing financial market pressures.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Strengthening financial cooperation between China and Singapore Opening remarks by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the Opening Ceremony of Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Beijing Representative Office, Beijing, 28 May 2013. *  *  *  Mr Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen 1 Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the time to witness the opening of the Monetary of Authority of Singapore’s Beijing Representative Office. MAS’ first representative office in Asia 2 This is MAS’ first representative office in Asia. Three factors underpin our choice to base our first Asian representative office in China. China’s growth has significant implications for the Asian region and Singapore 3 All of us have an interest in the successful transformation of the world’s most dynamic economy. China’s 12th Five-Year Plan marks an important transition, with increased emphasis on urbanisation, services and social development, and consequently also greater reliance on private consumption as a source of economic growth. China is managing this transition in a pragmatic and purposeful manner. At the same time, many industrial enterprises in the coastal provinces are rapidly upgrading in response to rising wages and moving up the value chain. 4 These domestic changes in China are taking place at a time when other Asian nations too are moving up the curve of development. It will lead to growing connectivity between Asia and China, and new patterns of connectivity as well, in good and services.