James D Rogers: Liquidity forecasting for monetary and fiscal management in West Africa Keynote address by Dr James D Rogers, Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone, at the opening ceremony of the Regional Course on Liquidity Forecasting for Monetary and Fiscal Management, organised by WAIFEM, Bank of England and UK Treasury Department, Freetown, 17 April 2007. *  *  *  Director General of WAIFEM, Dr. Chris O. Itsede, Distinguished facilitators from the Bank of England and the United Kingdom Treasury Department, Distinguished Course Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen. 1.0  Introduction  On behalf of the President, His Excellency, Ahaji Dr. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, the Government and people of the Republic of Sierra Leone, it is indeed a pleasure to welcome you all to Freetown on the occasion of the regional course on Liquidity Forecasting for Monetary and Fiscal Management jointly organized by WAIFEM, the Bank of England and the United Kingdom (UK) Treasury Department. l invite you to take some time off your crowded programme to visit tourist attractions and appreciate the recovery the country has achieved since the ruins of the civil war. The smiles are back on the faces of Sierra Leoneans, and visitors now have the peace of mind to savour the beautiful scenery of Freetown.

The Bank of England said it would complete its asset purchases ‘as soon as is operationally possible, consistent with improved market functioning’.18 The Federal Reserve said it would ‘purchase Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities in the amounts needed to support smooth market functioning’.19 And the ECB framed its decisions in the context of ‘severe strains in the financial markets’ posing risks ‘of the ECB’s monetary policy transmission becoming significantly impaired’.20 Asset purchases have accounted for all of the net increase in Bank of England and Federal Reserve balance sheets since last Spring, and about half of the ECB’s. Many other central banks took similar actions.21  16  The Bank of England expanded its own lending facilities to include broker dealers and CCPs in 2014, in response to the recommendation of the Winters Review: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2014/november/widening-access-to-the-smf. 17 Lorie Logan of the New York Federal Reserve, for example, set out the US approach in a speech last October: https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/speeches/2020/log201023 18 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-summary-and-minutes/2020/monetary-policy-summary-for-the-special-monetarypolicy-committee-meeting-on-19-march-2020 19 https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200323b.htm 20 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/accounts/2020/html/ecb.mg200409_1~baf4b2ad06.en.html 21 See for example ‘Central bank bond purchases in emerging market economies’ by Yavuz Arslan, Mathias Drehmann and Boris Hofmann, BIS Bulletin no.20 at: https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull20.pdf. 8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  8  Chart 4: Central bank balance sheet responses to the Covid-19 shock during 2020 Changes in components of central bank balance sheets since end-Feb 2020 (as % of 2019 nominal GDP)  Sources: Bank of England, Bureau of Economic Analysis, European Central Bank, Eurostat, Federal Reserve Board, ONS and Bank calculations.