samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
It is for this reason that we are gathered here today as stakeholders to share information on the progress to date and to adopt a strategic implementation framework for the work that remains to be done. Distinguished Guests, the tremendous support of the various stakeholders to the agenda of the FSDP cannot go unnoticed. The technical and financial support provided by a number of our development partners, including the Swedish Government, the World Bank, IMF, DFID, the United States Treasury and FIRST Initiative have gone a long way in slowly but surely making this vision a reality. The Bank of Zambia and the Government are, therefore, most indebted to our cooperating partners for helping us build capacity in our financial sector. Honourable Minister, the support of stakeholders from financial and other institutions on the various working groups has also been instrumental in facilitating the implementation of various FSDP activities. Further, the coordinating role of the FSDP Secretariat, anchored by the Bank of Zambia, has been key to the implementation of the FSDP. For this reason, we at the Bank of Zambia hope that the same level of technical, financial, material and morale support will be accorded to Phase II of the programme by all stakeholders. Ladies and Gentlemen, in recognising the critical role played by various stakeholders represented here, the work of the FSDP has, by design, taken a consultative approach in the identification of priority areas, formulation of strategies and the design of implementation frameworks.

However, this has diminished during 2022 with the recovery of labor supply and lower demand. The peso's depreciation has also played a relevant role in the rise in inflation. The increase in the exchange rate has been caused by a combination of internal and external factors, where the former have a greater weight. In recent years, the Chilean currency has lost value vis-à-vis other comparable currencies, mainly because of greater local uncertainty and some political-legislative decisions taken in previous quarters. More recently, the peso's evolution has been more linked to the dollar's global appreciation. Data for the quarter ending in August shows that job creation is stagnant, the unemployment rate remains at 7.9% and labor participation has stabilized. On the other hand, the Internet Job Postings Index shows a decreasing trend during the year. Nominal salaries present annual increases of around 11%, and real salaries remain at negative values close to 3% annually as of August. 1  Bilateral Meetings  •  Persistence  Inflation expectations have remained above the 3% target for several quarters. Although some measures they have receded somewhat at the margin, the fact that they have remained elevated for so long increases the risk of a mores persistent inflationary process and constitutes a very relevant point of attention for the Board's decisions. In fact, the latest Financial Operators' Survey (FOS) indicates that expected inflation in one-year falls to (previous: 6.3%) 6.0% and in two years to 4.5% (previous: 5.0%).
When I addressed the invitation to Madame Lagarde to visit Cyprus a few months ago, I could not have imagined how much more complicated the situation would be today. At the beginning of the year, the economic confidence was improving and the GDP growth rate was recovering fast. The war in Ukraine however changed everything. It has first and foremost caused a humanitarian tragedy, which we, as Cypriots, can relate to since we have gone through a similar situation with the Turkish invasion back in 1974. It has also shaped an economic landscape of higher risks and uncertainties. The situation calls for a strategy that goes far beyond the financial technical sphere, reaching to the core of our European values. I am confident that once again, as we did recently with the pandemic, the Eurozone will manage to address the challenges and come stronger out of this crisis. The most recent ECB policies have successfully guided the euro area economies out of the pandemic shock with the minimum possible scarring. Both the euro area as well as Cyprus have reached the pre-pandemic real GDP level within 2021, while a similar path has been recorded in the labour dynamics with the labour force participation having reached pre-pandemic levels. This has been achieved by the formulation of ample policy support. The ECB took a series of policy decisions aimed at achieving favourable financing conditions and alleviating the economic hit on households and businesses.

In comparison, premiums as a share of GDP are about 3 to 4% in more developed markets. There is reason to believe that the extent of underinsurance is widening given the growth in economic activity and higher risk exposures. As an example, during the December 2014 flooding in the east coast of Malaysia, total economic losses were RM2.6 billion while insured losses paid nationwide as at end-2015 was close to RM100 million, which is only a fraction of total economic losses. Some of the more important reasons for underinsurance include a lack of risk awareness and the lack of affordable products particularly for low income groups. Another important reason, and one that the Bank has also observed more widely in our work on market conduct issues, is a lack of trust in insurance providers and intermediaries. For most people, any insurance that they buy, with the exception of required insurance coverage for regulatory or financing purposes, would have been on the recommendation of an agent, broker or financial adviser. Yet, the same people who have purchased insurance products on the advice of their agents or advisers rarely express confidence that they really understand what they have purchased,  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  if it was suitable for their circumstances, or even if it was the right amount of insurance. If their experience with insurance providers or intermediaries later disappoints, particularly when they are trying to make a claim, their trust in the industry at large quickly erodes.
In 2005, the government decided to allow two casinos to operate within integrated resorts that also included leisure facilities, business and convention zones, and high-end retail outlets. This sparked the growth of a thriving entertainment services industry over the next few decades, attracting the burgeoning Asian middle class. This second phase of our economic development essentially saw the transition of Singapore from Third World to First World. By 2010, Singapore was an affluent society and a global city, at the cross-roads of international flows of trade, investment, finance and talent. Real GDP grew an average 6.7% per annum during this period. It was also a period in which the economy was buffeted by one crisis after another: •  the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998;  •  the collapse of the global IT industry in 2001;  •  the spread of the deadly SARS virus in 2003; and  •  the Global Financial Crisis in 2008  But the economy grew in resilience, rebounding sharply and emerging stronger after each economic shock. 2011–2025: Demographic slowdown and economic restructuring The dominant theme in the third phase of Singapore’s economic history was the overcoming of resource constraints through a significant restructuring of the economy. While Singapore had always been short of land and labour, these constraints came to a head in the 2010s. By 2011, annual growth in the total working age population had declined to less than 3%, and continued to fall steadily over the decade.

The most  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  important outcomes from that period of review which continued into the 1990s were the structural reforms to: •  enhance wage flexibility in the labour market;  •  tap more decisively into regional markets for trade and outward investment;  •  step up the pace of industrial upgrading;  •  promote innovation, enterprise, and entrepreneurship in the economy; and  •  liberalise various services sectors such as finance, telecommunications, and utilities. In fact, the key story post-1985 recession up till the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 was the rise of modern services as a twin engine of growth alongside manufacturing. •  The share of modern services in GDP increased steadily, from 16% in 1965 to 24% in 1985 and 28% in 2010. Financial services. Singapore was already a thriving regional financial centre since the 1970s. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the insurance and securities industries were completely liberalised and progressive steps were taken to open up the domestic banking industry to foreign competition. Business services. A broad range of business activities – accounting, law, advertising, and consultancy – grew in importance, playing an important role in cementing Singapore’s status as a regional hub. Info-communications services. The government embarked on a plan to computerise the civil service in the early 1980s. This helped to kick-start the info-communication services industry, one of the mainstays of the economy ever since. Entertainment services.
Therefore, it is important to find ways, to ensure more balanced development opportunities to all sectors of the economy and groups of population. Albanian economy, by large relies, on micro-businesses. Nearly all enterprises in Albania fall into the category of small and medium enterprises SME-s. More than 90 percent of Albanian enterprises can be classified as small or medium-size according to our INSTAT data. The majority of these companies are engaged in trade and services, reflecting their micro business nature, and less in industry. As for employment, SME-s account for more than 40 % of total employment in the enterprise sector. There is a high concentration in the region of Tirana-Durres of private enterprises than other regions, while industry is concentrated mainly in Elbasan. This new private sector especially SME-s needs the financial support to grow. Until now banking sector has not been able to meet these needs. The situation is more problematic because SME-s do not have very developed financial sectors. Usually, these countries also have difficulties to access international financial markets. I don’t want you to get me wrong about the role of financial sector. Financial sector has made considerable steps in Albania. Today, our financial sector includes many banks and non-bank financial institutions, savings and loans associations and unions, insurance and reinsurance companies, pension funds. One should say though that the development of the financial sector institutions is more noticeable in the banking sector and the insurance sector.

Another area that is wide open for innovation is the integration of takaful with elements of waqf, sadaqah and zakat to fund the provision of takaful coverage to the poor. I understand that a microtakaful waqf product to help out those in the low income segment was launched a few weeks back. I look forward to seeing more products such as these in the future. There is strong potential for takaful to take the lead in solving development challenges facing the world, including poverty and environmental degradation. Takaful can also be the missing link for businesses. The potential is enormous just by looking at the list of large infrastructure projects being undertaken. In Malaysia, just to name a few, there are the two new MRT lines, the ECRL and the KL-Singapore High Speed Rail in the pipeline. Internationally, there is the Belt and Road Initiative. All these entail large protection needs. Capturing these opportunities would require much greater capacity to underwrite large and specialised risks than currently exists in the industry today. This calls for greater retakaful capacity. Given the absence of such retakaful operators, alternative arrangements for the industry to come together to pool their capacity, expertise and business need to be seriously explored.
In line with this principle, the validation of internal models, for instance, should preferably remain the responsibility of the NCA in order to reflect the close link between this decision and the on-going dialogue that takes place between the insurer and its national supervisor; EIOPA for its part could concentrate more efficiently on the essential task of enhancing the harmonisation between national practices. In addition to these desirable adjustments of the European institutional framework, there is a need to make concrete progress towards a European resolution mechanism, which would provide more adequate tools to limit the impact of an insurer failure and increase trust and confidence. France has been working along these lines at national level and such a mechanism will be in place in our country before December. 1 The French resolution insurance regime requires insurers of a certain size to set up preventive recovery plans, which will form the basis for preventive resolution plans. Moreover, the ACPR is entrusted with several powers to be used in a resolution context, such as the possibility of appointing a resolution administrator in the insurance undertaking, limiting the distribution of dividends, or organising portfolio transfers to another insurer. 2. Economic innovation Let me now turn to my second point: economic innovation. As Europe’s economy is close to the “technological frontier”, businesses need to innovate more. As such, they need to be able to take more risks, which requires more equity financing, over the long term, rather than debt financing.

On this issue, I would like first of all to pay tribute to EIOPA which has done remarkable work to promote sound and consistent European regulation and harmonised supervisory practices within the European Union, since it was established in January 2011. The creation of EIOPA, following the Larosière report, reflected the need to move towards more integrated European supervision following the 2007–08 financial crisis, and I believe that it has been a success. In a context of increasing financial market integration, EIOPA has contributed to ensuring a true level playing field for all actors in the insurance and occupational pensions sector at the EU level, in coordination with national authorities and the other European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs). This well-balanced supervisory framework helps us deal with the “institutional” innovation – this is my first point – that we are starting to see as a consequence of the Brexit vote. Some British entities are indeed considering the possibility of simply setting up empty shell corporations in the European Union, mere company nameplates, while keeping their resources in the United Kingdom. I fully agree with EIOPA that vigilance is called for in this respect. Moreover, Brexit brings with it certain risks, and consequently the need for contingency plans. I am thinking in particular of the European policyholders who took out insurance directly with British undertakings and who should continue to benefit from the same protection.
As Benoît Coeuré rightly stressed last July, more research is needed on what their expectations are, and how they form them. v Third, there is still much we do not know about how firms and households form expectations on future interest rates, and on how these expectations affect their spending decisions. We know that standard DSGE models tend to assume too much foresight from private agents. How to incorporate more realistic behavior is a central issue, especially when forecasting the effects of our new instruments such as forward guidance vi. To be sure, some uncertainty over the response of the economy to our policies will always remain, especially when firms and households are themselves still learning how our new measures affect the economy, and how to live with very low or negative interest rates. vii  Page 5 sur 11 A last topic deserves, I believe, particular attention: the possible side-effects of our  monetary  tools  on  financial  stability,  especially  the  effects  of  unconventional monetary policies. 2. Monetary Policy and Financial Stability 2.1  Prudential Policies and Monetary Policy are Complements not Substitutes  To address concerns over financial stability, regulation and supervision, both microprudential and macroprudential, are of course available and essential. On financial regulation, ten years after the financial crisis, we must resist the temptation to unpick what has been done, and the complacency to believe that “this time is different”. Macroprudential policy is essential to foster financial stability. However, macroprudential policies have their limits.

In March 2000, the group issued a sobering reminder: institutions that provide leverage to HLIs must improve their counterparty risk management and hedge funds need to enhance their disclosures. Along with these developments, or some say in spite of them, the hedge fund industry has continued to grow from strength to strength. There are now about 6,000 hedge funds worldwide, managing more than $ billion. In 2001, some $ billion of new capital was invested into hedge funds. By 1 comparison, the entire industry was only $ billion in 1990 . While high net worth individuals remain the main source of capital, hedge funds are becoming more popular among institutional and retail investors. Funds of hedge funds and other hedge fund-linked 2 products are increasingly being marketed to the retail market . For example, ABN Amro launched the first retail fund of hedge funds in Singapore last month. There are a number of factors behind the meteoric rise in demand for hedge funds. The unprecedented bull run in the US equity markets during the 1990s swelled investment portfolios. This led both fund managers and investors to become more keenly aware of the need for diversification. Hedge funds are seen as a natural “hedge” for controlling downside risk because they employ exotic investment strategies believed to generate returns that are uncorrelated to traditional asset classes.
We must try to make the best possible assessments of the amount of resources that will disappear more permanently as a result of  4  For a more detailed analysis of this connection, see Adolfson, M. and U. Söderström (2003), “How is the economy affected by the inflation target?” Economic Review 1, pp. 49-63, Sveriges Riksbank. http://www.riksbank.com/upload/Dokument_riksbank/Kat_publicerat/Artiklar_. PV/er03_1_artikel3.pdf. BIS Review 66/2009  7  the recession and of how quickly output can increase without causing inflation problems. Otherwise there is a risk that we will conduct an expansionary monetary policy for too long and thus risk inflation problems later on. One necessary condition for conducting effective monetary policy is that the financial system functions. Since last autumn the Riksbank has taken a number of measures to safeguard financial stability, in particular the extensive lending to the banks. We have recently decided to extend the eligible counterparties for our monetary policy operations and to offer the banks the opportunity to borrow from the Riksbank not merely at maturities of three months and six months, but also at twelve months. If economic developments should prove to be much worse than we are now predicting, there may be reason to proceed with more unconventional measures to support the economy. One possibility is to do as they have in a number of other countries and purchase government, mortgage and corporate bonds. We are currently examining the experiences of other countries and analysing the advantages and disadvantages of this type of measure.

My assessment was then that our main scenario, with a decline in GDP in the world of around 1 per cent this year and an increase of just over 2 per cent next year was reasonable. But at the same time I considered that there was a risk that the recession would even be deeper and more protracted than we predicted. My reasoning was based on the fact that recessions that arise as a consequence of financial crises and recessions that are synchronised between several countries are normally followed by slow recoveries. Sweden was in a severe recession in April and we are still. We were assuming a fall in GDP of around 4.5 per cent this year and a weak recovery next year. As in the case of international developments, my assessment was that on balance the predominant risks were that the recession could be deeper and more prolonged. CPI inflation was expected to be negative this year, but underlying CPI inflation with a fixed interest rate, the CPIF, was expected to be close to 2 per cent throughout the entire forecast period. In my opinion, there was no reason to worry about deflation and no reason to worry about high inflation. We decided to cut the policy rate to 0.5 per cent. Today I would like to take up two questions in the current situation that are linked to monetary policy. These are the link between resource utilisation and inflation, and the limits for stabilisation policy.
However, that leads to shifts into other areas. Consequently, the risk may not ultimately be any smaller; it may just lie somewhere else. That must now be followed up. Is it not now the case that regulation itself is too complex? That is a legitimate question. However, if you establish simple rules, that comes at the expense of fairness in individual cases. That is true of the leverage ratio, for example. That certainly has disadvantages and may be unfair in individual cases. But it’s a rough initial guide that we can work with. I’m also convinced that there will be a Basel IV – and that will be simpler than Basel III. Will it also put an end to the situation whereby no capital needs to be held for the government bonds of EU countries? The Deutsche Bundesbank in particular is pushing for the abolition of this zero weighting and limits on the amount of government bonds that financial institutions are allowed to hold. The ECB does not yet have a position on that. My view is that consideration should be given to amending the zero weighting in the medium term. I would not do that today, though. I would do it after the crisis. And I would only do it if it was coordinated at global level. Action on that needs to be taken at international level. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7

In keeping with the conference theme of “Seeking Better Returns in the Current Volatile Climate” – I would like to discuss the investment challenges facing insurers, as well as share my observations on key issues that insurance companies would need to address in this new investment landscape. 6. This is important because as many of you know, insurers operate in a multistakeholder environment. They need to first offer competitive products to policyholders to meet their needs, maintain adequate capital to meet regulatory requirements, as well as provide adequate shareholder returns. The insurance industry’s targeted return corridor to policyholders can be at least 3–5%2 in order to maintain bonus payouts for participating policies; whilst the ROE to shareholders have typically ranged between 10%–15%3. In the case of life insurers, in particular, for which investment returns is a key source of income given their focus on long-term and guaranteed savings products, lower returns will strain the ability to meet both policyholders’ and shareholders’ expectations. Some insurers have ventured to forecast that a 10% ROE for the industry will be a “best-case scenario”, with many more calling for the industry to be more realistic about its return expectations from their investment portfolios. Challenging investment landscape 7. Let me first discuss the investment headwinds facing insurers. Specifically, there are 3 key challenges that are driving insurers to undergo a fundamental rethink of their investment approach: a. One, lower returns in the new normal;  b. Two, lack of long duration assets; and  c.  Three, regulatory reforms.