samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
The merger of the Dow Jones Islamic Index for Malaysia and the existing RHB Islamic Index, besides achieving some form of economies of scale with reduced duplication of efforts, will have the significant added advantage of both international and domestic recognition. Moreover, as one of the leading countries that support the growth and development of Islamic financial markets, it is most appropriate for the development of the index to be part of the Dow Jones Islamic World Index. Within a global index such as the Dow Jones Islamic World Index, the inclusion of the Dow JonesRHB Islamic index will increase the potential for further investments into Malaysian Islamic equities. Malaysia is well positioned to benefit greatly from this as the infrastructure and marketplace for Islamic financial instruments and investment has long been developed. Indeed, in our equity market, more than 80% of the counters in Bursa Malaysia or previously known as the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, are Syariah compliant. Ladies and Gentlemen, Certainly, the development of benchmark market indices is an important part and parcel of the continued progress, contributing to the further deepening of capital markets. Two particular areas of heightened focus are in the regional bond market and international Sukuk market. In the region, the Asian Bond Fund 2, launched by the EMEAP central banks in December 2004, is aimed at promoting the further integration of the regional countries' bond markets and the creation of a new asset class for Asia and global investors.

This makes it indispensable for the international community to strengthen the financial capacity of its central monetary institution to assist countries in a crisis situation. This is also why the Fund has established an emergency financing mechanism to allow financial assistance to be provided more speedily, when countries facing external crises are willing to take strong corrective action. This mechanism was used effectively to expedite the recent programs for the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. Even if it would be naive to believe that such programs could produce an immediate return to the status quo ante, we are confident that once these programs have produced their full effects in the next months, these economies will be in a much better position to start growing again at a strong, but more sustainable, rate. In conclusion, these are trying times in Southeast Asia. But the mechanisms are in place at the national and multilateral levels—and soon, I hope, at the regional level -- to enable your countries not just to pull through this crisis, but to emerge stronger than before. The only other pre-requisite for your success is the resolve to put current problems behind you. I see no reason why we will not see the same determination in Southeast Asia in the future as we have seen in the past. BIS Review 111/1997
Looking at the countries, which experienced a similar process that Turkey went through, it is clear that the falling inflation period differs from the environments where chronic inflation had previously existed or price stability is maintained afterwards. The falling inflation process is a transition period. Therefore, the features of the targeted price stability environment and the former high-inflation period can appear together. This can be explained by the fact that some sectors and economic agents can adapt themselves to the process relatively fast, while some sectors, failing to adapt to the new environment, take on different expectations and perception of risk factors shaped in the framework of their former habits. Let me elaborate this point as it is of great importance with regard to the achievement of price stability. In relatively fragile economic environments such as Turkish economy, where price stability has not yet been fully maintained and current policies have not gained credibility, some economic agents may take the exchange rate, monetary aggregates, interest rates and similar aggregates as reference while  BIS Review 63/2004  1  making their decisions. Therefore, as you will agree with me, expectations and risk perceptions in the economy will change according to the size of the referenced aggregate. In this period, some of the economic agents that I have mentioned are negatively affected by the referenced aggregates, which are adopted in accordance with the former habits that contradict with economic realities.

First of all, securing price stability will make permanent all that we have gained in the process of the falling inflation. When price stability is achieved, macroeconomic stability will sustain and efficiency in the economy will increase. You should remember that by attaining price stability, a precondition for sustained growth and increase in employment would be fulfilled. As a result of all these macro economic gains, economic units will no longer take into consideration an uncertainty like inflation both in their investment and consumption decisions. They will be able to forecast for the long term and plan more securely. 4  BIS Review 63/2004  Since economic units can forecast better while making decisions, in this stable environment labor market will work better, and people will be able to find more permanent jobs. In a continuous inflationary environment, growth also has ups and downs and in the period of growth for the unskilled labor force, which is very common in our country, it takes a lot of time to find a job and in the contraction period loses the job very easily and quickly. Stable environment achieved with the falling inflation will accelerate the inflow of foreign capital and our competitiveness edge in the international markets will increase. I would like to highlight one more matter in light of the above-mentioned issues. Inflation is not a fact that declines all by itself.
Baks, K. and C. Kramer (1999), “Global liquidity and asset prices: measurement, implications and spillovers”, IMF Working Paper Series, No 168. Browne, F. and D. Cronin (2007), “Commodity prices, money and inflation”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 738. Ciccarelli, M. and B. Mojon (2005), “Global inflation”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 537. 4  BIS Review 149/2007  Detken, C. and F. Smets (2004), “Asset price booms and monetary policy”, ECB Working Paper No 364, published in Siebert, H. (ed. ), “ Macroeconomic Policies in the World Economy”, Springer, Berlin, 2004. Markowitz, H. (1952), “Portfolio Selection,” Journal of Finance, 7: 77-91. Markowitz, H. (1959), Portfolio Selection: Efficient Diversification of Investments, Cowles Foundation Monograph 16, New York, Wiley. Sousa, J. and A. Zaghini (2004), “Monetary policy shocks in the euro area and global liquidity spillovers”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 309 Tobin, J. (1969), “A General Equilibrium Approach to Monetary Theory”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1: pp. 15-29. BIS Review 149/2007  5

Certainly, more can also be done to increase awareness and further increase the take-up rates for financial assistance programmes introduced by the Government such as Skim Rumah Pertamaku (SRP), Skim Jaminan Kredit Perumahan (SJKP), Skim Deposit Rumah Pertama (MyDeposit), Skim Pembiayaan Fleksibel for PRIMA homebuyers and Skim Pembiayaan Fleksibel (SPEF) for PR1MA homebuyers. We only have a few hours ahead of us to discuss a very complex and important issue that has no easy solutions. We need to think creatively and act collectively, and today, we have an opportunity to do both. I am therefore excited to hear the insights from our distinguished speakers, as well as the constructive exchange of ideas between everyone here today. As we do, we should keep in mind that the goal of affordable housing is not just about owning property; it 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  is about building stronger and more resilient communities – with greater opportunities created for those within them to succeed in life. This could well change how we see the problem and approach its solutions. 4/4  BIS central bankers' speeches
The Federal Reserve began its efforts to remove policy accommodation with its overnight policy rate at the zero lower bound and with a large portfolio of long-duration securities. Normalization, therefore, has two parts: increasing the overnight rate, and reducing securities holdings. Short-Term Rate Normalization First, let’s discuss overnight rates. The current monetary policy implementation framework relies on providing the market with two overnight investment opportunities to help steer short-term interest rates: interest on reserves (IOR), which is the Federal Reserve’s main tool to control interest rates, and the overnight reverse repurchase agreement (ON RRP) facility, a secondary tool. 6 This framework has proven to be extremely effective at controlling federal funds rates. As shown in Figure 1, it has maintained the EFFR within the FOMC’s target range on all but one day. 7 Looking at the distribution of traded rates within both the federal funds and eurodollar funding markets, as shown in Figure 2, it is also clear that the framework has broadly fostered trading at rates well within the target range. Indeed, the difference between the 25th and 75th percentiles of the rate distribution has consistently remained very tight over the course of rate normalization. 8  6  Potter, “Money Markets after Liftoff: Assessment to Date and the Road Ahead,” February 22, 2016, provides a detailed discussion of the new framework. For a discussion of the new and old frameworks, see Ihrig, Meade, Weinbach (2015).

At high levels of reserves, the responsiveness of rates to changes in reserve levels is fairly low, and the demand curve is said to be “flat.” As excess reserve levels decline, the responsiveness of rates increases. At low levels of excess reserves, the overnight rate responds sharply to small adjustments in the level of reserves, and the demand curve is considered “steep.” 20 Despite some of the recent upward moves in overnight rates, I don’t believe we’ve reached the “steep” portion of the demand curve, where aggregate reserves are scarce. Let’s run through some places where evidence of aggregate reserve scarcity might be found. To begin with, if we were closing in on the “steep” part, I might expect to see substantial above-IOR lending in the unsecured overnight markets, as at least some banks each day found themselves short of reserves and had to borrow them from other banks. In fact, the current amount of such 18  Assuming that all banks place an equal value on the next dollar of reserves, aggregate reserve scarcity is when that value is above the rate at which reserves are remunerated, and aggregate excess reserves is when that value is at or below the remuneration rate. 19 The classic paper on this topic is Poole (1968). A number of recent efforts have been undertaken to modernize the Poole model by adding interest on reserves and other features of modern money markets. Two notable examples of this are Schulhofer-Wohl and Clouse (2018) and Afonso, Armenter, Lester (2018).
QE and climate considerations  A second aspect of QE that has received close external scrutiny is its relationship to climate change. Responding to climate change is a strategic priority for the Bank; we continue to work towards promoting safety and soundness by enhancing the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA)’s approach to supervising the financial risks from climate change, and towards enhancing the resilience of the UK financial system by supporting an orderly market transition to a low-carbon economy. In particular we have supported the Financial Stability Board’s work on climate disclosure through the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). To show its commitment last June the Bank published a report disclosing for the first time its own approach to climate risk management for all its operations.26  Attention, however, has understandably focused on the £ corporate bond purchases that form part (around 2%) of our QE programme, and whether more should be done to account for climate considerations in these holdings. Our approach to date has been to invest in sectors in proportion to the total outstanding eligible issuance accounted for by each sector in the UK economy.27 An important part of the design of the CBPS back in 2016 was to achieve the MPC’s aim of imparting monetary stimulus in a way that was sector-neutral, consistent with the remit given to the Committee by the Chancellor. As a result, the carbon footprint of the APF Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme (CBPS) portfolio is broadly representative of the sterling investment grade corporate bond market (Figure 7).

The Term Funding Scheme, for instance, launched in 2016, was  I described the evolution of the monetary policy toolbox in more detail in my recent speech “The monetary policy toolbox in the UK”. In practice the assets we buy through QE sit on a separate balance sheet, the Bank of England’s Asset purchase Facility (the APF), which is indemnified by HM Treasury. This has important institutional and financial implications which I’ll come on to cover, but does not affect its use as a monetary policy tool. 8 9  4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  4  intended to reinforce the pass-through of the August 2016 cut in Bank Rate to what was then a historically low level. Our current Term Funding Scheme with additional incentives for SMEs is intended to reinforce the transmission of the March cut in Bank Rate to 0.1% while also supporting Figure 1: A summary of the Bank’s balance sheet tools  Taken from the Bank of England Markets and Operations Guide, which gives full detail on all our balance sheet tools. 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  5  lending to the real economy, particularly to SMEs. More recently the Bank’s response to Covid has included a Covid Corporate Financing Facility, launched jointly with HM Treasury, designed to lend cash, funded by reserves, directly to large companies, supporting their cash flow while leaving the banking system to focus on lending to smaller businesses.
Finally, as I noted earlier, we followed up in our last FOMC meeting with the release of an addendum to our Policy Normalization Principles and Plans that outlined how our balance sheet normalization plan will work when it is implemented. We also said clearly in the FOMC statement that if the economy evolves in line with our expectations, we expect to begin this process this year. In response, market participants have progressively increased the probability assigned to a change in reinvestment policy this year. Yet, Treasury and agency MBS markets have responded little at the time of these announcements—including those undertaken most recently. To me, this suggests that these communications have generally been effective in fostering an orderly adjustment in expectations about how we are likely to normalize our balance sheet. I also agree with Hélène about the important role of financial conditions in influencing economic activity. As I see it, financial conditions are a key transmission channel of monetary policy because they affect households’ and firms’ saving and investment plans and thus influence economic activity and the economic outlook. If the response of financial conditions to changes in short-term interest rates were rigid and predictable, then there would be no need to pay such close attention to financial conditions. But, as we all know, the linkage is in fact quite loose and variable. For example, during the mid-2000s, financial conditions failed to tighten even as the Federal Reserve pushed its federal funds rate target up from 1 percent to 5¼ percent.

A bank’s own assessment of its capital needs, coupled with the regulator’s assessment of the adequacy of capital, which would encompass all other aspects of its operations, apart from credit, would ensure adequate capital to insulate the bank against its risk exposure. After all, managing risk is fast becoming the single most important issue for the regulators as well as for the institutions that are regulated. Therefore, Basel II is good news and we can only benefit mutually from its adoption. A roadmap is therefore already drawn up and we hope we can all commence our journey down this road to reach our goal of a safe and sound banking system resulting in financial stability which is what we all aspire. As you are all aware, our banking community is in the process of adopting the standardized approach within Basel II by 2007. However, the major challenge faced by the banks in the next few years, are the IT, skills development and training that are required to implement the more advanced approach which relies heavily on quantitative techniques. It is imperative, therefore, that banks start getting ready for this eventuality sooner, than later. Basel II should not be looked at as an exercise in compliance but as an impetus to more efficient risk management across the banking sector. Its benefits would be seen in the ability of the financial system, to promote sustainable economic growth which would be beneficial to the banks, the central bank and to the consumers of banking business.
GROUND BREAKING CEREMONY OF THE NEW BARCLAYS BANK ZAMBIA PLC HEAD OFFICE  SPEECH BY DR. DENNY H. KALYALYA GOVERNOR – BANK OF ZAMBIA  THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2019 LUSAKA, ZAMBIA  GROUND BREAKING CEREMONY OF THE NEW BARCLAYS BANK ZAMBIA PLC HEAD OFFICE FUNDED BY THE ABSA GROUP LIMITED, SPEECH BY DR. DENNY H. KALYALYA, GOVERNOR – BANK OF ZAMBIA – 6 JUNE 2019  The Absa Group CEO, Mr Rene van Wyk; The Director, Bank Supervision Department, BoZ, Ms. Gladys Mposha; The Director, Economics Department, BoZ, Dr. Francis Chipimo; The Deputy Group CEO and CEO Absa Regional Operations, Mr Peter Matlare; Deputy CEO, Absa Regional Operations & Chief Operating Officer Absa CIB, Mr Temi Ofong; The Barclays Bank Zambia Board Chairperson, Ms Chishala Kateka; The Barclays Bank Zambia Managing Director, Mrs Mizinga Melu; Executives from Absa Group; Representatives from Sunshare; Staff from BoZ; Management and Staff of Barclays Bank Zambia Plc; Distinguished Invited Guests; and Members of the press. It is my great pleasure to officiate at this ground-breaking event of Barclays Bank Zambia Plc New Head office. Distinguished Guests, the construction of the new Head office for Barclays Bank Zambia Plc, which will be rebranded as Absa Bank Zambia from next year, is a demonstration of the efforts and commitment by Absa Group Limited to become a Pan-African organisation, that is interested in the sustainable development of the financial sector and the economies of the countries they operate in.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is also our expectation that the bank will continue to support the SME sector in Zambia, as the SME sector is key to sustainable economic growth and development of the country. You will agree with me that SMEs have the potential to create many productive jobs and contribute significantly to our economy, if well supported. It is our expectation that Absa Group Limited, through Barclays Zambia, will continue with its efforts and strategies that promote financial system stability, support monetary policy, enhance financial inclusion and gender mainstreaming for sustainable development in line with the Bank of Zambia’s strategic objectives. Today, as we commission this site, it is my hope that the facility will be of highest standards and that the new premises will provide an environment for the provision of innovative financial solutions to the public as an endorsement of the Absa Group brand promise “Bringing Possibilities to Life.” Master of Ceremonies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, with these remarks, please join me in applauding the Board, management, and staff of Barclays Bank Zambia, and Absa Group Limited, for this initiative that will introduce convenience and world class banking services and facilities to its clientele. The timing of this project is also a good indication that the Absa Group is opportunity focused rather than challenges. We hope this will rub on to the other players in our economy as well. Thank you and God bless.
Malaysian banks, with their vast network of presence across the region could also serve as investors’ gateway to East Asia. Malaysia has been innovative in developing its financial system. This is very much evident in the rise of Islamic finance that offers investors a wider range of financial and insurance products. Prior to 2000, we had only two Islamic banks and two takaful operators. Today, Islamic banking assets account for more than a quarter of the total banking system. There are more than 100 financial products beyond the basic financial services offered. These include wealth management products, corporate financial solutions and investment banking services. Indeed, Islamic finance has arrived. From being a novelty to mainstream – it is able to meet the needs of the economy. At the same time, our capital market also stands at par with Asia’s best. We currently have one of the largest bond market in East Asia. We do not restrict any form of foreign participation in our bond and equity markets. This allows for natural deepening and widening of the financial system in Malaysia. Importantly, it allows investors like yourselves a diversified source of funds to manage your financial needs. Sovereign implied rating is at times, better than assigned ratings by the Credit Rating Agencies. Currently, all three of the major rating agencies, namely Moody’s, S&P and Fitch rate Malaysia at ‘A-‘ and on a stable outlook. The last time Malaysia’s long-term foreign currency ratings were upgraded by these agencies was more than 10 years ago.

Because my view is that there are a number of trade-offs at play here, which need to be taken into account. For instance, if we don’t implement the necessary changes and succeed in properly restoring the credibility of risk-weighted capital ratios, a more important role will have to be played by other parts of the regulatory system, such as the leverage ratio. For now, our working hypothesis is a regulatory level for the leverage ratio of 3%, but to me this is more of a placeholder. What the final outcome should be will depend on the calibration of the whole system, in which the risk weights and leverage ratio are important pieces. 7  By end-2014 it is expected that all jurisdictions with GSIBs will have been assessed, in addition to some others (total 17 countries). By 2016, all Basel Committee member jurisdictions are expected to have gone through the assessment of their capital framework. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  An important element in this calibration will be transparency – the more trans- parent banks are with methods and models to calculate risk weights, the better it will be for the credibility of the system as such. If we widen the perspective further, I think there is also an interesting issue of calibration linked to the concept of going-concern capital requirements on the one hand, and goneconcern capital requirements on the other.