samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
If you get into higher value exports, you  create jobs which will give attractive wages, which will then make it much more likely that people who going to the Middle East, to Korea, to Italy, to wherever they are going now, would prefer to remain at home rather than migrate temporarily without their families, which will help address a number of social problems as well. Page 7 of 17  So it is a question really, of relative wages. If we can create higher paying jobs, and jobs in the export sector tend to be higher paying in other countries, particularly if they are created by FDI. Sri  Lanka does not have a labour shortage problem. It is just that the labour is in the wrong places. We have 27% of our workforce in agriculture, giving us 7% of GDP. It is politically difficult to move people from low-productivity, low-income agriculture to higher productivity, higher income activities, like the export sector. We have 15% of our work force in the Public Sector Service – 1.5 million people. It has increased from 700,000 in 2005 to 1.5  million. So there is plenty of labour. We have to create the  incentives and the types of jobs to get people into the competitive and modern sectors. And that’s to do with relative wages. And so we need to get the investment to get higher value employment. Penetrating global value chains and production sharing networks will also boost industrial exports.

Why exports and FDI are key pillars: when you have a domestic market of twenty-one million people and purchasing power of now Page 1 of 17  almost four-thousand US dollars, you simply cannot sustain the 6% or more growth that we need to achieve by just selling into this domestic market. It’s simply not possible. And why do we need 6% growth? We have a very aspirational  society now or more. It’s an educated society which is exposed to all the latest communication technologies so people know what is available around the world and they aspire to achieve a lot of material benefits for their families. So if one cannot deliver that, clearly there could be tensions in terms of our social and political stability. So it has to be growth in exports that drives our growth process to the point where we can achieve 6% plus growth to meet the aspirations of our people. And FDI, if you look around Asia, which has been the most successful continent in terms of growth and export performance, whether it is a country as large as China or one as small as Singapore, FDI has played a key role in the export transformation that has driven those economies. So that’s the model that the government is trying to put in place. It is doing a number of things to sustain that model in terms of the macro-economic policy making. have been put in place.
There are different estimates and they change all the time as the news from the US housing market deteriorates. 1  Calculated using purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates. 2  Again, calculated at PPP exchange rates. BIS Review 136/2007  1  Second, there is great uncertainty about where these exposures will end up. So banks have become more worried about the creditworthiness of their counterparties. And third, this lack of information, in a complex and globally interconnected financial system, breeds fear: of ratings downgrades, of fire sales and just of unknown consequences. And fear breeds more uncertainty. So banks have been hoarding liquidity, to protect themselves against further upsets; and they have become more reluctant to lend to other banks. So the rates at which they lend to each other have risen, relative to the levels which are expected to be set by central banks. The squeeze in core liquidity markets has already been unusually prolonged. And it is very hard to say when conditions will return to something more like normal. When the dust has settled, the financial landscape may look a bit different. Investors may be more aware of risk and warier of complexity. Some recent financial innovations will disappear. Others may survive but in modified form, and probably at an increased cost to final borrowers. What does all this mean for UK monetary policy?

In time tighter credit conditions could mean weaker business investment, though so far forward indicators of investment intentions still point to fairly strong growth. And any marked increased in uncertainty about demand conditions could lead to investment plans being shelved. But it is still early days – too early to draw strong conclusions about the size of these effects. Even more uncertainty surrounds the possible impact of tighter credit conditions on household spending, which alone accounts for three fifths of total domestic demand. There is already some evidence that banks are tightening the price and non-price terms on which they lend, especially to borrowers with relatively poor credit histories. And quoted fixed rate mortgage rates have already risen relative to market expectations of Bank Rate – though since markets now expect Bank Rate to fall instead of rising, the pick up in actual mortgage rates remains quite small. Overall, households seem to be in a relatively strong position: debt has risen a lot relative to incomes, but so too have holdings of financial and real assets. Mortgage arrears and repossessions remain well below their peak levels in the early 1990s. But the share of income which needs to be devoted to interest rate payments was already set to rise sharply,  2  BIS Review 136/2007  largely as a result of rising debt levels. And there is a growing minority of households who are reporting difficulties with their debts.
With regard to the latter measure, I would like to point out that such initiatives from the banks are of course welcome and praiseworthy. But it is also essential that the banks follow up what is happening and that the authorities monitor to what extent the recommendations are actually followed. Moreover, awareness that rising indebtedness and housing prices could entail problems has gradually increased among both lenders and borrowers. The situation on the housing market is now discussed regularly in the media. I would like to believe that this is at least partly because the Riksbank has long been pointing out the risks involved here. However, it remains to be seen whether these measures and the increased general awareness will be enough to slow down developments and bring us onto a less risky course. Very recently there have been signs that developments in both lending to households and housing prices have entered a calmer phase. We are of course following developments very closely. Continued vigilance necessary Despite the calmer situation, there are nevertheless strong reasons to remain vigilant. If it turns out that this was not a break in the trend, but merely a temporary slowdown, and that housing prices and the build-up of debts among households accelerate again, we and others must be prepared to take action. We therefore cannot just twiddle our thumbs; the Riksbank and others must ensure that we have an effective toolbox of measures that can be quickly and smoothly put into operation. I will return to this shortly.

Happily, the government has now appointed a financial crisis commission with the task of looking more closely into these issues. This is good news, and the sooner we can reach a satisfactory solution regarding how best to allocate responsibility, powers of authority and tools, the better. And although I do not wish to anticipate the commission’s inquiry, I see a future role for the Riksbank with regard to macro-prudential supervision. Monitoring and preventing systemic risk is very much in line with our current macro-oriented work on safeguarding price stability. Not least because the cyclical factors affecting price stability may lead to the build-up of systemic risk. Increase the resilience of the banking sector 4 The third type of measure concerns, as I said, strengthening the banking sector’s resilience in general. This is important not just because of the current developments in the housing market. The financial crisis showed very clearly that the current regulatory framework for the banking sector is inadequate. Although Swedish banks escaped relatively lightly this time, we could see how banks in other countries suffered acute liquidity and capital shortages. And this is why we now have an international agreement on the new regulatory framework for the banking sector – Basel III – which establishes new minimum requirements that the banks must meet with regard to both capital and liquidity. This is, of course, welcome. But the fact is that some weaknesses still remain. For example, the implementation period for the Basel III rules is very long.
Furthermore, the CET is foregone in the case of all those non-EU countries which benefit from preferential access of the EU market, especially in the case of raw materials. This means that imports can be purchased from alternative sources, possibly from the enlarged EU market, or from non-EU countries which enjoy access to the EU market. Finally, the CET is also suspended when the imported raw material is re-exported outside the EU as a finished 19 product . So while the costs of production for some sectors of the economy may increase, and this in turn could have implications for inflation, at least in the short-run, this impact is likely to be minimal in practice. As a member Malta would also assume the EU’s commitments under the non-reciprocal agreements with developing countries. Whereas this could have negative implications for specific sectors, for the economy as a whole these effects are unlikely to be significant or enduring. This is because the proportion of imports from these countries in Malta’s import bill is marginal. Second, the Cotonou Agreement, which is the EU’s most relevant agreement in this regard, will expire in 2008, by which 20 time it is expected to be superseded by Economic Partnership Agreements based on reciprocity. If anything, therefore, the EU network of reciprocal trade agreements will increase. Within a few years importers and consumers should thus have more and not less access to duty-free imports, and any short-run increases in inflation should be more than neutralised.

The commencement of AIA AFG Takaful Bhd., being the second takaful operator to be launched among the new licensees, offers strong value propositions and is envisioned to further enhance the development of the family takaful industry in Malaysia, namely in penetrating untapped areas of business within the family takaful industry, such as microtakaful, medical and retirement products. This would certainly enhance the breadth and depth of family takaful products available in the market, thereby widening the financial safety net of the general population. The establishment of the two additional takaful joint ventures that would InsyaAllah, be in operations by the end of this year would also reinforce the competitive element and innovation in the takaful industry. On the regulatory front, regulations for the takaful industry will continue to focus on ensuring effective risk management in the product development process and operations of takaful operators. The takaful industry has been progressively on its track to fully embark on the principle and risk-based supervisory approach that has been implemented for the insurance sector. This is seen by the recent issuance of the Guidelines on Takaful Operational Framework, which establishes principles governing the operational processes of takaful business to ensure that business activities and innovations are within the takaful operator’s risk management capacity. With effective discharge of takaful operators’ duties, the interests of takaful stakeholders will be safeguarded as the guidelines place emphasis on sound management to ensure sustainability of takaful operators.
Durmuş Yilmaz: Press conference for the presentation of the Inflation Report Speech by Mr Durmuş Yilmaz, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, at the press conference presenting the third issue of the Inflation Report, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Ankara, 29 July 2009. *  *  *  Distinguished Guests and Members of the Press, Welcome to the press conference to convey the main messages of the July 2009 Inflation Report, one of the most important communication tools of the inflation-targeting regime. The report typically summarizes the economic framework addressed in monetary policy decisions, elaborates global and domestic macroeconomic developments and presents the medium-term inflation forecasts, which have been revised in view of the previous quarter developments, along with the monetary policy stance. As you know, in the summary of Monetary Policy Committee Meeting published yesterday we pointed out that global interest rates are likely to remain at low levels for an extended period, given the significant slowdown in growth and the increase in saving rates. We therefore specified that this view should be emphasized more forcefully to align market yields closer with future policy intentions. In this framework, as a result of our evaluations with Committee members, we agreed that it would be possible to provide more solid information regarding the policy stance in the upcoming Inflation Report. Before presenting this information to you, I would like to give you a summary of recent developments related to the factors affecting global and domestic inflation. 1.

One motivation may be to pass on wealth to children, who otherwise may not inherit until well past the most expensive child-rearing years. Other motivations can include supplementing pension income, repaying debt and making home improvements. The risks in this market though are very different to those on insurer’s other assets. It is a retail product bringing conduct risks that fall under the FCA’s responsibilities. From a prudential perspective, the main risk is long-term stagnation in UK house prices. Economically, the no-negative-equity guarantee is a written option on house prices. Where insurers have recently entered the market and/or are growing their loanbooks rapidly, the average expected maturity of these options is likely to be some decades in the future. Low loan-to-value ratios mean the short-run risks to insurers are limited. They can ride out a property market crash as long as the market subsequently recovers. But loan-to-value ratios increase over time unless house price growth keeps pace with the rate at which interest is accruing. So what you have is a sort of race to the value of the property illustrated by Chart 3. The time it takes for the value of the loan to exceed the value of the property will be governed by: the interest rate charged (higher is more risky), the loan-to-value ratio (higher is more risky), house price inflation (lower is more risky) and the age of the borrowers (younger is more risky). Underwriting standards do appear to have weakened a little over recent years.
Øystein Olsen: Use of models and economic theory in Norges Bank Lecture by Mr Øystein Olsen, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at the Department of Economics, University of Oslo, Oslo, 8 September 2011. *  *  *  The lecture is based on previous speeches and newspaper articles. A brief comment on recent developments is included in the final section. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. Allow me to start by thanking you for your invitation to give this year’s Schweigaard lecture. Anton Martin Schweigaard was one of the leading statesmen of 19th century Norway. He was a jurist, a politician and an economist. Although “revival of productive forces” and “expansion of national wealth” were to Schweigaard important objectives for economic policy, most important was the promotion of “moral progress”, “public decency” and “the perfection of political and legal institutions”.1 I doubt that Schweigaard was always impressed by the perfection of political institutions, perhaps in particular the institution of Norges Bank. Schweigaard grew up in modest circumstances in the small market town of Kragerø on the coast of southern Norway – a town severely affected by the British blockade of Norway during Denmark-Norway’s involvement in the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s. Norges Bank was established in 1816, the year after the Wars ended. The Storting decided that a compulsory silver tax would be levied to provide capital for Norges Bank.

However, inflation should not become too low either. Deflation is often synonymous with recession. Central banks have always had a natural responsibility for stabilising the value of money. Schweigaard was concerned with stabilising the krone’s value in silver terms. Since that time, Norway has operated various regimes with the aim of stabilising the value of money. A silver standard for the krone was followed by the gold standard. Later Norges Bank sought to stabilise the krone’s value against other currencies, first the pound sterling and thereafter the US dollar. For a long period after the war, various fixed exchange rate systems were introduced under international agreements, which were subsequently abandoned in favour of  1  Slagstad, Rune (1998), “De nasjonale strateger” (National strategists), Pax  2  Aubert, L. M. B. (1883), “Anton Martin Schweigaards barndom og ungdom” (Anton Martin Schweigaard’s early years), P.T. Mallings Boghandels Forlag  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  a more unilateral stabilisation of the krone against various currencies. Since 2001, the objective of monetary policy has been low and stable inflation. Rather than stabilising the value of money indirectly through an exchange rate target, we now aim to attain a more direct objective which we believe monetary policy can achieve over time. The operational target of monetary policy is annual consumer price inflation of close to 2½ per cent over time. Monetary policy shall also contribute to stabilising output and employment. In this respect, inflation targeting is flexible.
Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: Recent developments in the Spanish economy Testimony by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, before the Parliamentary Committee on Budget Affairs, Madrid, 17 April 2012. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, I appear today before this Committee as I have regularly done so each time the State Budget has been debated in Parliament. This picture of normality is in stark contrast to the exceptional circumstances which mark the economic background against which the 2012 Budget is being debated. The Spanish economy is currently immersed in a complex and costly adjustment process which entails, among other things, a major fiscal consolidation drive. The adjustment must, moreover, be made in an external context strongly influenced by a sovereign debt crisis in the euro area which, for reasons not very different from those that have made this adjustment necessary, is affecting us most severely. Under these conditions, the State Budget for this year takes on singular importance. Allow me first to remind you that the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, far from being resolved, took on a new dimension last summer. Then, tensions spread to the debt of certain Member States with sounder fundamentals and economic policies more in step with the patterns of behaviour befitting a monetary union than those of the countries initially affected. From being confined to a relatively limited group of particularly vulnerable economies, the crisis became systemic. It is not easy to pinpoint the ultimate reasons behind this qualitative leap.

It should also be emphasised that the Spanish economy is in the midst of a process of macroeconomic adjustment and, as noted above, its growth prospects depend on the external sector, which tends to yield only moderate increases in tax revenue in the short and medium term, particularly if this is accompanied, as in the Spanish case, by an adjustment in the real estate sector. On the expenditure side, the draft Budget proposes highly significant reductions concentrated in capital expenditure and also in current transfers and goods and services purchases. In the case of transfers to government-owned corporations, it is important for the planned reduction to be accompanied by adjustments of similar size in the effective expenditure of these entities, so as to achieve a lasting reduction of the imbalances. Here, too, the Budget projections are generally not free from risk. First, because it is often difficult to restrain the high inertia of certain items, frequently resulting in the past in overshooting with respect to the initially budgeted figure, particularly in the case of goods and services purchases. Nor can we rule out further unfavourable changes in those items, such as unemployment or pension benefits, whose size depends on external factors, such as the unemployment rate, population or inflation. This is related to the fact that the risk of deviating from the budget is higher in social contributions.
Most Singaporeans manage their debt well. The consumer credit situation in Singapore is healthy, with strong household balance sheets, especially compared to many other countries. But a small minority of people have problems related to excessive borrowing. According to Credit Counselling Singapore, overspending is one of the top reasons why people fall into debt. This brings us back to the importance of budgeting and not spending beyond our means. MAS has in place safeguards to discourage excessive borrowing on credit cards and unsecured credit. We are one of the few countries in the world that have such extensive rules on the use of credit cards. These rules have generally helped to keep us out of trouble. Even so, some 3% of those who have borrowed on credit cards and unsecured credit have accumulated debt that exceeds their annual income. And this does not mean that secured borrowing – to buy a house or car – is free of risk. When we borrow, we have to make sure that we can service our debt even if interest rates rise or our income falls. Households who have over-extended themselves often get into deeper debt when they cannot service their existing debts and end up borrowing even more. And once they are in a debt spiral, it becomes very difficult to get out. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  In recent years, MAS has tightened loan-to-value ratios for housing loans, and introduced the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) framework to prevent households from over-stretching themselves.

Jean-Pierre Roth: The euro – a stabilising factor in the international currency system Summary of a speech by Mr Jean-Pierre Roth, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Fondation Jean Monnet pour l'Europe, Lausanne, 21 September 2007. The complete speech can be found in French on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch). *  *  *  The euro is undoubtedly a success story. It has contributed to stabilising the international currency system. In Europe, the former monetary disorder has been replaced by a new monetary order. The European payment system has become more transparent and price stability is guaranteed. Switzerland, too, is benefiting from European currency stability. The Swiss franc is taking advantage of a monetary environment that is considerably calmer than previously. The euro and the franc are coexisting very successfully. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to claim that all the effects of European currency integration have already worked their way through to the real economy. In spurring on competition and promoting transparency, the euro is having an integrating effect. However, there are still considerable obstacles standing in the way of this integration process. BIS Review 103/2007  1