samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
Some calm has come to the external financial markets, originating, among other causes, in the announcements that steps will be taken towards a banking union and the statements by the governor of the European Central Bank regarding the possibility of shortly implementing a sovereign bond purchase plan, upon previous political agreement on a fiscal austerity program. Besides, no significant sovereign debt payments from peripheral economies have fallen due in the past several weeks. However, the region faces a tough path, because of considerable difficulties to carry out these actions. For example, how a banking union for the  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Eurozone could be materialized is unclear and, for the time being, there is no unanimous support from member countries. In addition, there is the negative outlook placed for Germany’s and other central Eurozone economies’ ratings. Plus, in the coming months, several events will occur that may revive market tensions. For September there is, among other developments, the evaluation of the tripartite group on the degree of compliance with agreed adjustments in Greece and the possibility of a new program, aside from the voting at the German constitutional tribunal on the legality of the ESM. For October, there is a strict calendar of debt maturities in Spain, which entails refinancing obligations in international markets. The impulse from abroad on the Chilean economy will be somewhat milder than was foreseen a few months back.

Indeed financial services are instrumental for broader human development, as people invest in themselves and seek protection from external shocks. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, as you are no doubt aware, the results arising from the 2005 FinScope demand side study which aimed at measuring access, usage, perceptions and the demand patterns on financial services offered in Zambia were not encouraging. The findings of the study indicated that only 33.7% of the adult population was financially served. This entailed that 66.3% of the Zambian population were financially excluded or not using banks or other financial institutions. Furthermore, the supply side study conducted in 2007 also highlighted a number of weaknesses in the financial sector including, limited outreach of banks and financial institutions to the general populace, high spreads between deposit and lending rates, excessive collateral requirements and poorly managed cost structures which contribute to limiting outreach. As a consequence of the low levels of access to financial services, the Bank of Zambia adopted financial inclusiveness as one of its strategic objectives to ensure improved levels of access for all. In this regard, it is gratifying to note that following the survey, commercial banks and other non-bank financial institutions including Celpay have increasingly become receptive to the calls for increased provision of financial services.
In such a situation, the central bank would have to buy the domestic currency and pay with foreign exchange reserves, which are finite and would eventually run out. When the market realises that there is a difference between maintaining a fixed exchange rate when the  12  McCallum, B. (2000), “Theoretical analysis regarding a zero lower bound on interest rates”. Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. v. 32, 870-904. 13  See Svensson, Lars E.O. (2001), "The Zero Bound in an Open Economy: A Foolproof Way of Escaping from a Liquidity Trap," Monetary and Economic Studies 19(S-1), February, 277-312; Svensson, Lars E.O. (2003), "Escaping from a Liquidity Trap and Deflation: The Foolproof Way and Others," Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(4) 145-166. 6  BIS Review 19/2009  currency is strong and when it is weak, the high demand for the domestic currency will cease and the foreign exchange reserves will return to a more normal level. This method is a very drastic action. It shows that the central bank really means business and lends credibility to the price level target. It may therefore affect expectations of the future price level much more than any other measure. The method is verifiable as it consists of action and not just talk, and its logic is very clear. Raised inflation expectations would reduce the real interest rate, stimulate the real economy and increase inflation, and the price level would move upwards towards the price level target.

It is thus necessary to keep watch on inflation expectations, to counteract expectations of falling inflation, and preferably to create expectations of higher inflation. In this type of situation it may be desirable to create expectations that actually exceed the inflation target. The Riksbank’s current regime, with a credible inflation target and the publication of forecasts, including their motivation, for inflation, the real economy and the repo rate, provides a very good base for maintaining confidence in monetary policy, for upholding inflation expectations and preventing them from falling too low, or even from falling unchecked. If, contrary to expectations, this should not prove sufficient, and inflation expectations were to threaten to become too low, it is possible that tightening the inflation target, in the form of a temporary target for prices, might work better. This type of temporary price target could be introduced in the form of an average inflation target, so that inflation over the coming five years should on average be 2 per cent. If inflation then falls below 2 per cent during a period of time, it must be kept above 2 per cent during a period of time to ensure the average will be 2 per cent. With a well-motivated average inflation target it may be easier to justify this monetary policy and to create confidence in allowing inflation to exceed 2 per cent during a period of time in order to provide a sufficiently low real interest rate.
These advantages and disadvantages, however, represent an opportunity for the financial sector to further focus on financial support through financing these enterprises, commensurate with risk level that must be taken into consideration when financing SMEs, and to set appropriate finance prices commensurate with risk levels. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Ladies and Gentlemen, Business Enterprises have witnessed significant growth in recent years. The number of enterprises subscribing to the Social Insurance System went up from about 121.5 thousand in 1426H to approximately 218.4 thousand in 1430H, recording an annual average growth of 16 percent. Individual proprietorship firms represented 93.1 percent of the total of annual average growth, limited liability Enterprises 4.7 percent and holding Enterprises 0.6 percent. Economic activity of these enterprises was focused in three areas: commercial activity 34.3 percent, construction and building 32.3 percent and manufacturing industries 14.6 percent. Small Enterprises with less than 5 employees accounted for the largest share of 55.5 percent of the total number of enterprises at the end of 1430H, while the rest, enterprises with more than 60 employees represented 3.8 percent. These data show that most of the enterprises in the Kingdom are small, in terms of the number of workers. SMEs’ contribution to the Kingdom’s GDP is very low, accounting for 33 percent, while SMEs constituted 64.3 percent of Japan’s GDP, 43.3 percent of Spain’s GDP, 56 percent of France’s GDP, 44 percent of Austria’s GDP, 43 percent of Canada’s GDP and 33 percent of Australia’s GDP.

SMEs’ contribution to the U.S.A’s GDP is more than 50 percent. The insignificant contribution of SMEs to the Kingdom’s GDP may be due to the Oil and Governmental sector which represent the major impetus of economic activity. Dear Brothers and Sisters, SMEs are facing clear challenges in gaining the necessary funding for meeting their expansion needs due to various reasons including poor management, and lack of adequate guarantees and, subsequently, the difficulty of obtaining the necessary funding. In order to overcome this problem in the Kingdom, the Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with Saudi banks, established a guarantee program (Kafalah) for financing SMEs. The program, with a capital of Rls 200 million, is managed by Saudi Industrial Development Fund to cover a proportion of the risk of the financing entity in case of the failure of the guaranteed activity in repaying the finance or part thereof. The program also aims at encouraging banks to finance SMEs that have the constituents for success, but at the same time, they cannot present the necessary guarantees or accounting records to prove their eligibility for funding. The program has recorded good performance since its inception in 2006 until 1-Oct-2010, as the number of guarantees approved by the Ministry of Finance during that period reached 1,668 with a total value of Rls 644 million, while loans granted by banks under the umbrella of the program amounted to Rls 1.6 billion, benefiting about 1,113 SMEs.
Gent Sejko: The economy and banks, present and future challenges Speech by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the round table on “The economy and banks, present and future challenges”, organised by the Bank of Albania and Government of Albania with the banking system, Tirana, 16 September 2015. *  *  *  Your Excellency Prime Minister, Honoured representatives of international institutions, Dear bank executives and representatives, This meeting seeks to once again draw the attention on non-performing loans, an issue that has been discussed extensively over the recent years. It aims at fostering the shared and concrete commitment to reduce the stock of non-performing loans, increase the financial intermediation by the banking sector and underpin Albania’s economic growth. Following, I would like to list some facts. The high level of non-performing loans has not affected the banking sector’s stability. Liquidity and capitalisation indicators remain adequate and the financial performance has been positive and improving. But, the still-high percentage of non-performing loans has contributed to a higher perception of risk by banks; in turn, they have adopted a more conservative approach to lending. Our survey data point to tightened lending standards; meanwhile, the lending volume, albeit positive, is still considered as low. The credit quality has improved during this year. The non-performing loans ratio, after peaking 25%, fell to around 21% in July 2015.

By contrast, the inflation outlook has improved appreciably. This has increased the SNB’s room for manoeuvre. Finally, there is a risk that the financial crisis will cause a deterioration in financing conditions for the economy as a whole. These are the considerations that have prompted today’s decision to cut the three-month Libor target range by another 50 basis points. Given the expected deterioration in the Swiss economy and the imponderables linked to the long and variable monetary policy transmission lags, a further rate cut appears appropriate. With this action we are reducing, to the extent possible, the risk of an even more pronounced economic downturn. Inflation forecast chart How has our inflation forecast been revised? The dashed red curve on the chart represents the new forecast. It covers the period from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2011, and maps the future development of inflation on the assumption that the three-month Libor remains unchanged at 0.5% over the forecasting period. For purposes of comparison, the dash-dotted green curve shows the inflation forecast of the September monetary assessment, based on a three-month Libor of 2.75%. The new forecast shows a rapid fall in inflation over the next few quarters. It drops back below the 2% mark as from the fourth quarter of this year.
Employment in different sectors during the 20th century 80  80  70  70  60  60  50  50  40  40  30  30  20  20  10  10  0  0 1900  1910  1920  Agriculture  BIS Review 137/1999  1930  1940  1950  1960  1970  Public and private sector  4  1980  1990  2000  Industry  The employment trends in different sectors, as a proportion of total employment, shows the Swedish economy’s transformation during the 20th century. Three different stages are especially clear. Firstly, fewer and fewer people earn a living from agriculture over the years. Having provided employment for around 60% of the labour force at the beginning of the century, agriculture now engages only a couple of per cent. This change reflects a dramatic increase in agricultural productivity and thereby internal migration. The population in rural areas falls and large cities such as Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm grow. It is also primarily in these regions that growth is generated. Secondly, the shrinking agricultural sector is reflected in a corresponding increase in industrial employment. Manufacturing occupied over 30% of the labour force in the 1950s when this part of Sweden’s corporate sector was largest in terms of employment. Thereafter, the proportion of employed in this sector has fallen. Finally, the really dramatic development as regards increased employment is the expansion of the service sector.

Put to good use, this transformation can probably create stronger potential growth, lead to higher productivity growth and lower inflation, and benefit employment. The favourable changes that have occurred over a number of years in the Swedish economy since the 1980s suggest that such a development is within our grasp. All forecasts to date about the spread of the Internet have been on the low side. In the United States, it was 38 years before 50 million households had radio sets, while the intervals for television sets and cable television were 13 and 10 years. The Internet, however, had reached 50 million households after only 5 years and according to some estimates the number of users will increase greatly during the next few years. It has been said that whereas conventional telephony in Sweden is growing by 7% a year, traffic on the Internet is currently rising at this rate every week. It is not just that more and more people are subscribing; those who surf on the Internet are doing so more and more. The number of surfers is measured by Sifo Research & Consulting; the figures show that almost 3.5 million people in Sweden surf, which is not quite half of the population aged 12 to 79. Of these, as many as 2 million stated that they surfed on a daily basis. Another noteworthy figure is that in the age group 50-79 years, almost 20% are active users of the Internet. So the Internet is not something that only young people find attractive.
Annual percentage change 5  Interest rate costs Food  4  5 4  Energy Good  3  3  Services 2  2  CPI  1  1  0  0  -1  -1  -2  -2  -3  -3  -4  -4 08  09  10  11  12  13  Source: Statistics Sweden  All in all, given the relatively weak development abroad, it is thus not difficult to understand the division in demand that has marked the Swedish economy in recent years. What can monetary policy do today? Swedish monetary policy cannot do anything about the causes of the weak demand from abroad, but it can mitigate the effects on the Swedish economy. How low the repo rate needs to be, and how quickly inflation should rise towards the target are ultimately questions of judgement. I believe that it is appropriate that the Riksbank has let the repo rate remain at one per cent since the end of last year in order to boost the Swedish economy and to get inflation to rise to 2 per cent. According to the forecast, the repo rate will remain at this level until the end of 2014. In the forecast, the real interest rate will remain negative until the beginning of 2015, which shows that monetary policy is expansionary.

Moreover, if the weak development of exports and investment during, above all, 2012 had not been counteracted by household consumption, then the latest slowdown in the Swedish economy would have been more pronounced. Households have become more optimistic over the last 12 months and this is reflected in higher housing prices, increased lending and increased consumption. They have been helped by the increase in their disposable incomes over a period of several years. Low interest rates have of course contributed to this development in the household sector. Turning to the labour market, employment has increased but unemployment is nevertheless higher than it was a year ago as the labour force has increased relatively quickly. This is partly due to an increase in those of working age in the population, but also to the government’s labour-market reforms, which are both factors of a structural nature. At the moment unemployment is approximately 8 per cent and with the Riksbank’s current forecast we are approaching the interval of 5 to 7.5 per cent within which the Riksbank believes the long-run sustainable rate of unemployment lies.1 If we look at the situation in different sectors we can see that employment has increased in the service sector while the weak demand for Swedish industrial products is in part responsible for the weak development of employment in the manufacturing industry.
It would appear, therefore, that as the economy responds to a gradual improvement in external demand, it may still be constrained by its own rigidities. Removing these obstacles and correcting the resultant imbalances is, therefore, a precondition for achieving more rapid growth, which in turn is the key to accelerating convergence with euro area income levels. 2  BIS Review 154/2009  Faster growth is achievable but depends on … The Roman writer Ovid said that times change and we change with them. That may be so, but what really matters in today’s circumstances is how rapidly we read the signs of the times and adapt to them. I will focus on three directions of necessary change. The first is towards greater competitiveness. The second, and related thrust, would be to promote higher productivity. The third focuses on fiscal consolidation and the pursuit of sound public finances. Before proceeding, however, I should stress that none of these objectives is attainable without further structural reforms, debunking the popular notion that the State has an unlimited capacity to satisfy demands for free goods and services and an end to inefficient practices that involve subsidies. … greater cost competitiveness … First of all, in Malta’s case sustained economic growth depends largely on our ability to attract export-oriented foreign direct investment. Given the past increases in unit labour costs, the only way of maintaining a competitive edge is by ensuring that these costs rise by less than those of our competitors.

To prevent these problems from getting out of hand, our country’s development should be undertaken in a way that does not place importance on GDP growth at the expense of all else, but aims to strike a balance between GDP growth and the preservation and conservation of natural resources and the environment. Rapid development should not be undertaken unless the environment and natural resources are able to sustain and support such development. The public needs to have greater interest in resource management, particularly water management, in order to allow sustainable use, alongside the growing needs from agriculture and industry. We need to restore nature and the natural balance of the environment, which can thrive in parallel with the growing economy, increased tourism demands, as well as improved living standards for all Thais in general. Hence, in order for economic development to continue in the right direction, development should not be measured solely by GDP growth, but by other development indicators as well. There has been increasing discussion on the concept of Green GDP, although this has not yet been put into practice. [In Bhutan, instead of adopting traditional GDP measures, the Bhutanese have adopted “Gross National Happiness”, or GNH as their development philosophy. In recognition that human happiness is a composite of both the material and non-material needs, GNH is meant to address this. GNH is a more comprehensive measure that incorporates economic development, environmental preservation, cultural promotion, and good governance.]
But as markets attained a global dimension, encouraged by financial liberalisation and the advance of information technology, they became far less tolerant of weaknesses than before, and the markets responded to weaknesses with harsh punishments, which many considered grossly unfair. But this is the reality that we face. And if we are to continue to benefit from the greatly enhanced efficiency of global financial markets in international financial intermediation - a process that has contributed so much to development - we have to get on with the necessary reforms. These include the domestic structural reforms to the financial and corporate sectors, to make sure that we can manage the risks and cope with the volatility that are part of that efficiency. And, to the extent that consensus can be reached, they also include measures to strengthen the international financial architecture. Thus, with some encouragement from the Bank and from others, and more importantly, urged on by the brute forces of the market, significant progress has been made in the domestic structural reforms of individual economies in the region. I applaud the progress and the achievements; and I sympathise with the pain and suffering which they have entailed. With the economic recovery of the region now well under way and international funds flowing back into the region, I would also urge a continued commitment to structural reforms and caution against complacency.

The latest business surveys and economic data point towards some moderation of late, which is 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  not specific to France but also seen in other euro area economies. GDP growth in the first quarter could thus prove somewhat softer than previously anticipated. However, the underlying momentum remains solid and broad-based, and we interpret recent data as reflecting a temporary pull-back from the very strong and above-trend pace recorded in the second half of last year. It does not alter the inflation outlook over the medium term horizon that is relevant for our monetary policy. [slide 6] Against this backdrop, we forecast GDP growth in France to remain robust in 2018, at 1.9%, after 2.0% in 2017, and to stabilize at around 1.6%-1.7% per year in 2019–20, which would remain above potential. Thanks to this performance, the output gap is expected to close in 2019. The engines of growth should be more balanced. Household consumption is expected to accelerate somewhat, with significant gains in the purchasing power of households of + 1.5% to 2% per annum. In particular, the tax measures set out in the budget laws should help to boost household income from the end of 2018. Total investment should lose some momentum but remain a significant contributor to output growth. And as exports pick up, the contribution of external trade should turn neutral. [slide 7] The performance on the labour market has been very encouraging as well.