samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
François Villeroy de Galhau: New Year wishes to the Paris financial centre New Year wishes to the Paris financial centre by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, Paris, 16 January 2019. * * * I would like to wish you all a very warm welcome to this magnificent Golden Gallery, which has just celebrated its three hundredth anniversary. The Banque de France and the ACPR have also established long-standing ties with the other public authorities and the players involved in the financing of the economy, and this cooperation plays a crucial role in ensuring financial stability and consumer protection. In view of this long-established relationship, I am all the more happy to extend to you our warmest personal wishes, for yourselves, your loved ones, and for all your staff. First, a word on the economic situation. Although it is less glorious than what was expected a year ago, it is still relatively satisfactory: according to our surveys and despite the slowdown resulting from the yellow vests movement, economic activity in France increased by 1.5% in 2018. We expect the same figure for 2019. However, we face three challenges: uncertainty, impatience and isolationism – which can feed on each other at the dawn of this new year: uncertainties, from Brexit to Chinese growth; the impatience that weighs everywhere on the sustainable reform efforts, and the isolationism embodied by the US protectionist postures.

This year will also be the year of the European elections on May 26, which are essential for Europe, and of the French Presidency of the G7, which may be an opportunity for furthering effective solutions at the international level. Tonight, however, I would like to focus on three wishes for the smooth financing of the economy: for the euro, for financial stability, and finally for inclusive finance. 1 - My first wish is for the euro, which has just celebrated its 20th anniversary The euro is an undeniable success. Average annual inflation has been brought down from 4.9% over the two decades preceding the euro to 1.7% over the past two decades. This has contributed to preserving the purchasing power of European citizens. Financing costs are significantly lower. Our currency is now supported by 75% of euro area citizens, and 72% of French citizens: it is the highest level ever achieved since 2003. In 2019, euro area growth – although down – is expected to remain above its potential. In this environment, the normalisation of our monetary policy, which started with the successful termination of our net asset purchases in December, remains desirable. It must be gradual – according to the sequencing that we specified – and pragmatic - in the implementation timeframe where we must keep our options open in the face of uncertainty. At the same time, we need to finally strengthen our Economic Union, particularly if we are to face a downturn.
The investment-saving gap moved to surpluses averaging 10 percent of GDP in the first three years after the crisis, from the pre-crisis deficits average of 7 percent of GDP before 1997. Such magnitude of change is indicative of the depth of the adjustment Thailand had to go through. Although the initial imbalance in the lead up to the crisis was not small, the adjustment was amplified partly by the wave of contagion effect in the early years of the crisis which brought pressure on the capital account, the exchange rate, and growth. Now, while we can look back to the last two years of growth of around 4 percent, signs of fragility still abound, with important issues remaining to be resolved. This includes the continued reform of the banking sector and the resolution of the costs of financial sector restructuring. The main fragility in the recovery process at this time is the weakness in domestic demand. The problem is compounded by the slow growth in bank credit and the weak corporate balance sheets, particularly the non-export sector. Unfortunately, the current external environment does not bode well for the recovery, going forward. The global slowdown is posing strains on Thailand’s export, and is adding pressure to the current account and external stability. Official GDP forecast this year is around 2.0-2.5 percent. Given the change in external environment, this year will be more a time for consolidation than for expansion.

Finding solutions to this problem is not going to be easy. But this is where efforts to revive the domestic economy will need to focus on. New lending is perceived as risky given the current negative factors on the macro fronts and external factors, while NPL overhang preoccupied bankers’ attention and kept them from renewing their client relationship. To address this problem, the authorities have chosen to approach the problem in three ways:  BIS Review 70/2001  3  ·  First, to further accelerate corporate debt restructuring by improving the legal frameworks and by setting up a national asset management corporation to deal with the remaining unresolved problem loans. Progress on this front is most visible. The law establishing the Thai Asset Management Corporation, or TAMC, was passed and operations set to begin soon with all asset transfer to be completed by September. A key benefit of TAMC is the advantage of being a single creditor of the transferred asset. This would allow TAMC to deal effectively and speedily with the unresolved debts that involve multiple creditors. Also, the vast executive powers given to TAMC by law would make it easier for TAMC to take a comprehensive approach to debt restructuring, and have the ability to deal with cases that might warrant corporate restructuring and change of management. ·  Second, to introduce a scheme of credit guarantees which would provide a facility of risksharing between corporate borrowers, the Government, and banks based on market mechanism.
This constraint paves the way for scenarios characterised potentially by self-fulfilling expectations and that lead to unfavourable outcomes in which funding suddenly dries up and the country affected may find itself bound to default on its debts, irrespective of the soundness of its economic fundamentals. Euro area governments have spent almost two years trying to construct some mutual insurance mechanism that will perform a market-stabilising role, so far unsuccessfully. While waiting for them to achieve this, a disproportionate part of the task of defending the stability of the euro area has fallen on the European Central Bank. Since the sovereign debt crisis broke, we have on the ECB Governing Council adopted numerous non-conventional measures to restore the workings of specific financial market segments – namely the money and public debt markets – that have proven crucial to bringing the operation of the monetary policy transmission mechanism back onto a more normal footing. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Early in the crisis the ECB adopted a generous liquidity-providing policy vis-à-vis financial institutions, implementing it over these years using far-reaching measures.

However, what is quite certain is that the size of structural change required will be large, comparable to what Thailand experienced during the economic liberalization of the 1980s and 90s. This change, almost by definition, will not be easy. If Thailand overcomes this hurdle, it will benefit from exporting more goods, possibly more hi-tech, to the region while becoming part of the regional supply chain and enjoying a greater range of imports. But while the domestic outlook appears positive, the global environment remains uncertain. The lingering euro debt crisis and fragile US recovery continue to weigh on global growth. Why? Current technical solutions do not address deep-rooted long-term problems. As a result, resolution has been delayed, adding to uncertainty. Moreover, the longer the delay, the more interest rates and fiscal stimulus in both the US and euro area will be pushed to new limits. The tightened policy space means that new shocks will be hard to manage and could derail the ongoing recovery. In my view, it appears that the global economy currently lacks the clear leadership especially in regards to getting the advanced economies out of the woods. Countries which had previously provided the leadership for global macroeconomic management through, for example, the International Monetary Fund, are now caught in the dilemma of solving their own economic problems versus choosing policy options for the greater good of the global economy. This is a separate issue deserving of its own discussion.
Jean-Pierre Danthine: Market volatility, Swiss National Bank liquidity measures and foreign exchange reserves Introductory remarks by Mr Jean-Pierre Danthine, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the end-of-year media news conference, Berne, 15 December 2011. *  *  *  I would like to address three main issues today. These are the acute market volatility experienced this summer, the impact of the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) liquidity measures and minimum exchange rate upon our money and foreign exchange (FX) markets, and the management of our FX reserves. Acute market volatility The second half of 2011 has, until now, been marked by an extraordinary degree of uncertainty. Volatility on the equity, bond and foreign exchange markets has increased markedly, reflecting investors’ concerns about the softening of global growth, the European sovereign debt crisis, the US debt ceiling crisis and the resilience of the international banking system. Signs of this acute volatility abound. Allow me to highlight three recent examples. Firstly, between July and early August, the VIX Index, a measure of the volatility of the S&P 500, abruptly doubled. Secondly, the MSCI World Index, a measure of the state of global equity markets, decreased by almost 20% between early July and late September, rebounding in October, only to fall again afterwards. As concerns about bank solvency and credit risk increased banks being at the heart of the crisis the benchmark MSCI World Banks Index also fell by over 25% between early July and late September.

Thirdly, as concerns over the security of corporate and government bonds grew, the premia investors have had to pay against bond defaults have increased very significantly. The perceived decrease in the creditworthiness of key European companies and Western European sovereign bonds was highlighted by the very sharp rise of several benchmark credit default swap (CDS) indices for these markets.1 The foreign exchange market has been of particular concern to the SNB, as the Swiss franc’s safe haven properties and the growing dearth of alternative “safe” assets led to massive movements in our currency, which required the SNB to act. In early August, the real effective exchange rate of the Swiss franc peaked at an estimated level of almost 40% above its post-1990 long-term average.2 The extent of this deviation was very rare, in historic terms, as the previous high point, at the end of 1995, was only 12% above the same long-term average. Since the introduction of the euro in 1999, the volatility of the EUR/CHF exchange rate has averaged approximately 5%.3 In August it rose to almost 30%. As chart 1 shows, three of the largest ever daily negative movements in the EUR/CHF exchange rate also occurred in this period. Since the introduction of the minimum exchange  1  The Markit iTraxx Europe Index, for example, which is composed of 125 investment grade entities from six sectors (auto, consumer, energy, financial, industrial and TMT), more than doubled between July and September.
These two winds have stirred up the water through which the UK economy must pass. The westerly gale first hit us in August as developments in the US mortgage market led to turmoil in global financial markets. For some years, banks were able to borrow cheaply in world capital markets to expand their lending. They packaged the resulting loans and sold assets backed by those loans to capital market investors. They were able to do that because some investors had failed to adjust to lower rates of return caused by high savings in emerging economies and low inflation at home. Those investors engaged in a “search for yield” by buying risky assets without always understanding fully the risks attached to them. Families and businesses had access to more finance at lower cost. That was most obvious in the growth of the US sub-prime mortgage market, where the potential problem of lending to people who could not repay when the interest rate was reset on their floating rate mortgages was becoming only too clear. In the United Kingdom too, borrowing and spending growth were strong and inflationary pressures built up. BIS Review 8/2008  1  But in August all that changed dramatically. Rising default rates in the US mortgage market led investors around the world to question whether they were being adequately compensated for the risks they were bearing on a wide range of assets – not just those associated with sub-prime mortgages.

The prices of those assets fell, and markets closed for a range of complex credit instruments. As I said two years ago, “risk premia have become unusually compressed and the expansion of money and credit may have encouraged investors to take on more risk than hitherto without demanding a higher return. It is questionable whether such behaviour can persist”. And, as we have seen, it hasn’t. The re-pricing of risk that is still continuing is not a process that we should try to reverse. Adjustment to this has been painful for banks in the major financial centres in two ways. First, with some asset markets closed, banks found funding more difficult. Some needed to finance loans they had made but had then expected to package up and sell. Others needed to finance off-balance sheet investment vehicles that were no longer able to fund themselves. At the outset of the crisis, banks were concerned to protect their liquidity position. But increasingly, attention has turned to a second, more fundamental concern. As a range of asset prices fell, banks began to report large losses. Uncertainty about the scale and location of losses led to concerns about the adequacy of bank capital and hence the ability of the banking system to finance continued economic expansion. At the end of last year, sentiment in financial markets worsened markedly. So in mid-December, central banks around the world announced a co-ordinated set of actions in money markets.
What about the longer-term risks facing the banks in Hong Kong? Or, to put the question in a larger context, what are the longer-term processes shaping the banking sector that carry risks as well as opportunities? We in the HKMA have identified a few of these in an internal exercise that is still ongoing but I would like to share with you today our preliminary views on five of them. They are: •  structural shift in the banking sector  •  China risk  •  technology risk  •  diversification risk  •  changing international standards. In the remainder of this talk, I shall deal with each of these areas in turn, focusing more on how we think banks in Hong Kong should tackle these processes and risks, and less on our corresponding supervisory responses or strategies, which in any case are still being developed. My main message is that, while banks need to focus clearly on the short-term risks I have already outlined, we should not lose sight of the more fundamental forces that will shape the landscape of the banking sector in the years to come. If they do not take these forces into account, individual banks not only face growing risks, but they could be in danger of losing their competitiveness. Structural shift in the banking sector First, the structural shift in the banking sector.

Concluding, I would like to thank all the researchers, the speakers, the audience and our collaborators, who responded positively to our call for participation. With these words, I wish you all fruitful deliberations, I wish the conference all success and I wish all the guests an enjoyable stay in Tirana. Thank you! 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches
Yiu-kwan Choi: The debt market of Hong Kong - what can we offer to investors? Keynote address by Mr Yiu-kwan Choi, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the third Annual Asia Pacific Bond Congress, Hong Kong, 13 June 2006. *  *  *  Mr. Shale, distinguished guest, ladies and gentlemen, It gives me great pleasure to speak at this year’s Asia Pacific Bond Congress. On behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, I would like to extend my warmest welcome to everyone here today, especially those of you who have traveled from afar to visit us. I would like also to thank Euromoney for organizing this excellent event, and for organizing it in Hong Kong for the third time. It is a clear recognition of the important role of Hong Kong - Asia's World City, in the bond markets of the Asia Pacific region. Like many other financial markets, the bond markets in the Asia Pacific region have recently seen plenty of new developments, challenges as well as opportunities. I am glad to see that the Congress has rightly covered many of these latest issues, and I am sure that for those who were here yesterday would have learnt from my colleague, Ms Julia Leung, about the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s efforts in enhancing regional cooperation.

Today we focus very much on the price increases on some services after the introduction of euro coins and notes, but let us bear in mind that prices on durable goods that are more subject to cross border comparisons, have indeed increased less than the average or even decreased. There are already signs of a convergence of prices on such durables and there is also area-wide euro pricing from some firms, which reflects increased price competition across borders. To conclude, the Monetary union presents an attractive proposition for Sweden, given that we continue to improve the functioning of wage formation and labour markets and that we ensure a solid institutional foundation for fiscal policy to stabilise the economy. The same could in fact be said about the euro area countries: With structural reforms and more solid foundations for fiscal policy, the present EMU-countries would have much better possibilities for employment growth and productivity gains. Monetary Union is putting pressure on both industry and politicians to improve their performance in the years to come. 4  BIS Review 70/2002
Eddie Yue: Internationalisation of the renminbi – trends and developments Keynote address by Mr Eddie Yue, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the 5th Hong Kong - London RMB Forum, Seminar on RMB Business, Hong Kong, 11 December 2015. *  *  *  Katharine [Braddick], Peter [Alexander], distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, It gives me great pleasure to be hosting the 5th Hong Kong – London Renminbi (RMB) Forum. May I extend a very warm welcome to all of you attending this Seminar which forms part of the Forum, especially our guests travelling from London. This annual congregation is a reflection of the importance we place in the long-established RMB business co-operation between Hong Kong and London. And, the Seminar could not have come at a better time. Just 10 days ago, the International Monetary Fund announced its decision to include the RMB in its Special Drawing Rights basket. Naturally, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority welcomes the announcement as it represents a milestone in the development of the RMB. The IMF’s decision reaffirms the Chinese currency’s status as a freely usable currency, and enhances the representativeness of the SDR basket. Indeed, based on market projections, the RMB’s inclusion in the basket could bring up to $ trillion worth of investments in RMB assets by central banks, sovereign wealth funds, supranational organisations, large pension funds and institutional investors over the next five years.

And there will be more to come. We look forward to the launch of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, and looking further ahead, the Mainland authorities have announced plans to consider implementing the Qualified Domestic Individual Investors scheme (QDII2) on a trial basis. It’s certainly true that individuals on the Mainland have shown a great deal of interest in diversifying their investment holdings. This is an area where we see Hong Kong having a strong competitive advantage, with our strategic location, our expertise in private banking and wealth management business, coupled with our strong client networks on the Mainland. To  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  capitalise on these emerging opportunities, we have been liaising closely with the Mainland authorities on QDII2.The second trend is that not only is Chinese capital “going out”, Chinese companies are also increasingly "going out". Outward direct investments (ODI) by China to the rest of the world amounted to RMB758.5 billion in 2014, a 63% rise over the past five years. And, it’s interesting to note that 16% of these flows are settled in RMB, up from a mere 3.7% in 2011. This “going out” trend has been continuing for some time, but has been given fresh impetus by the greater desire of Chinese enterprises to diversify into other non-RMB asset classes. New policy measures by the Mainland authorities, notably the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, has also played a key role.