samchain/econo-pairs-v1 huggingface dataset:
M R Pridiyathorn Devakula: Thailand's Monetary Policy - its obstacles and challenges An address by Mr M R Pridiyathorn Devakula, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Seminar on "Where does Thailand stand now?" Bangkok Post – Tradex Economic Forum Bangkok, 26 September 2001. *  *  *  Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, The tragic terrorist attack in the United States, and the repercussion on the financial markets all around the world, reinforced what we already witnessed in the 1997 Asian crisis – that the financial world has become closely inter-twined, globalised and integrated. Disturbances in one market readily spread to and affect all the others. This is the kind of challenge facing policymakers in setting monetary policy these days. Past Achievements Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me briefly review the economic developments. Thailand has faced a number of difficulties and fought hard in the last four years. We have gone through unprecedented adjustments and improvements on both economic and financial reforms. The Thai economy has gradually recovered. The growth rate of GDP, which was a contraction close to 11% in 1998, has now been maintained in a positive territory for more than two years; 4.2% in 1999, 4.4% 2000 and would highly likely be positive again this year, even though at lower percentage of growth. Macroeconomic and financial stability has been restored.

Chris Salmon: Remarks on the Sterling Monetary Framework (SMF) Annual Report Remarks by Mr Chris Salmon, Executive Director for Markets of the Bank of England, at the Money Markets Liaison Committee meeting, London, 13 July 2015. *  *  *  I would like to thank Eleanor Broughton, Ronnie Driver, Sarah John, Ben Martin and Ben Morley for their comments and contributions. The Bank will hold an Open Forum this autumn. The Forum will facilitate an open debate about the role of markets in society, and provide an opportunity to review how key financial markets are functioning. The Bank’s own mechanism for interacting with markets, when implementing monetary policy and providing liquidity insurance, is set out in the Sterling Monetary Framework (SMF). Markets work more effectively when participants are open and transparent about their activities, and the Bank aspires to meet that standard in relation to its own market operations, including through publishing an annual report on the effectiveness of the SMF. This Committee brings together key participants in sterling money markets and is a natural venue to discuss the operation of SMF. As such, today I want to summarise the key themes that were covered in our most recent annual reports and to sketch out some of the issues that the Bank is likely to confront in coming years. These are areas where your future feedback will be essential as we work to maintain the effectiveness of the SMF.
As regards the solvency support measures for firms, according to Banco de España estimates, the funding approved could cover all the capital shortfalls of firms generated in 2020 as a result of the crisis. Nevertheless, the use of such funding so far is estimated to have contributed to reducing only a part of the SME solvency problems that arose as a result of the pandemic.16 This could owe to the fund allocation criteria not including any requirement relating to firms’ financial position, among other reasons. On the whole, the evidence available suggests that the public policy response has helped reduce the long-term consequences of the pandemic-induced crisis. Specifically, the measures implemented have managed to preserve most of the pre-pandemic employment and avoided an increase in the rate of firm closure. In particular, our latest Financial Stability Report highlights that, in the case of non-financial corporations, although the recovery in sales and the more moderate debt growth in 2021 have prompted an improvement in businesses’ financial situation, on average this continues to be more vulnerable than before the pandemic. For example, the average debt and debt burden ratios began to fall in 2021, and the percentage of firms with high debt decreased across the board, standing close to pre-pandemic levels in the moderately affected and largely unaffected sectors. In the severely affected sectors, however, it remained 7 pp higher than in 2019.

To address this, it is essential to explore the various reasons for our business sector being so skewed towards small, low-productivity firms and to mitigate its effects. Many of the initiatives that could foster business growth would also facilitate the reallocation of activity across sectors and firms that will in all likelihood have to be faced in the coming years. A recent study found that the Spanish sectors best placed to address the challenges that the digital, green and demographic transition will entail are small in size, whether compared with other sectors or with Spain’s neighbouring economies. As part of a strategy to stimulate business growth, smaller firms should be helped to access a wider range of external sources of funding on more advantageous conditions, while the policies in support of business innovation should be strengthened. Action would also be desirable in the regulation of economic activity, an area that has become increasingly complex in recent decades, with a potentially adverse impact on business dynamics and aggregate productivity. Some recent initiatives in this area appear to be a step in the right direction, such as the Draft Law on business start-ups and growth (which seeks to boost business start-ups and foster their expansion by improving regulations), removing barriers to economic activity, combating business defaults and providing financial support for business growth. Another is the reform of the Insolvency Law, which brings in significant changes to insolvency and pre-insolvency procedures and may help partially remedy the shortcomings of the current insolvency mechanisms.
It was a quest to understand and the role and position in this new market economy; to rediscover the incentives of the private initiative and the risk that embodied in economic decision making. Along this process Albanian society established the foundations of the macroeconomic consolidations that started with the new millennium and accession to EU has scored significant progress. For a long period of time the economy has grown around 6 % percent annually, contributing to an upward trend of GDP per capita reaching around 2.500 euro. Inflation has been quite stable within our target band 2-4 % supported by responsible Monetary and Fiscal policies. Further structural reforms improved the functioning of the market economy. Privatization of big and medium enterprises, the privatization of former public banks, the modernization of legal framework and many other important reforms contributed to such impressive performance of Albanian economy. In the last years I believe the country has made a substantial progress in its way towards European Union. After wasting our chances during ‘90s I believe we are in the right track and  2  BIS Review 119/2007  personally I’m confident that the distance to our final destination, Brussels is getting shorter day after day. The coming years are of a vital importance in adhering to EU as far as Albania is preparing itself to move with its own feet. The current agreement with IMF will finish at the end of 2008.

Determinants of GDP dynamics 8  contributions, percentage points  percent 8  6  6  4  4  60  percent  50  40 2  2 30  -4  10  actual final consumption net exports of goods and services change in inventories gross fixed capital formation real GDP, annual change (rhs) Source: NIS  2017 H1  -4 2016  20  2015  -2  2014  -2  2013  0  2012  0  0 Intermediate Primary commodities goods January-July 2016  Capital goods  Consumption goods  January-July 2017  Source: NBR 16  Figure 23.
3  According to the Food Outlook from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 22 May 2008. BIS Review 68/2008  3  When we decide on the future direction of monetary policy, it is important to know whether the rising oil and food prices will have lasting or temporary effects on inflation. 4 It is difficult to know this in advance. We must follow developments closely. But we can receive some guidance by looking at the factors that lie behind the price increases. Increased demand, supply effects and portfolio investment behind rising commodity prices One reason for the high commodity prices is the increased demand in the world market from emerging economies. Higher incomes per capita in China, India and other rapidly growing economies have led to increased demand for food and also to changes in the patterns of food consumption. Demand for meat has increased in particular, which has in turn pushed up the demand for and prices of feed grain. This also spreads to other food crops. It is reasonable to believe that the demand for food in the world will remain high. Another important driving force behind the world demand for commodities is the investment in ethanol and biodiesel in recent years. The increased use of some food commodities in the production of biofuels limits the supply of food and increases the price of food crops.

Fraziali Ismail: COVID-19 and climate responsibility, commitment, and collaboration  change,  collective  Closing remarks by Mr Fraziali Ismail, Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at Malaysia Showcase during Climate Week NYC 2020, New York City, 17 September 2020. * * * From time to time, we chance upon heart-warming stories of how seemingly small and random acts of kindness, result in something miraculous. I am talking about stories like Jadav Payeng, an environmental activist and forest worker from India, who planted a tree almost every single day for 40 years. Jadav was only 16 when he started working with the district’s social forestry division in a tree plantation drive. Upon completion of the 5-year project, Jadav chose to stay and continued on his quest to save his island. This led him to single-handedly create a real man-made forest, the Molai Forest, which houses several species of animals and thousands of trees that is now almost as big as New York’s Central Park. We also marvel at Afroz Shaz, who began picking up trash on Versova Beach in Mumbai, and inspired thousands of volunteers to join the cause. Versova’s dramatic transformation from filthy to fabulous went viral in India, with praises to Afroz and the volunteers for helping to restore the beach that was previously polluted by 15 years of piled up rubbish.
First, agents will need to build their capacity to analyse consumer needs and risk profiles, and be able to match them efficiently to suitable products or combinations of products that are appropriate to the consumer. In practical terms, this has significant implications for the information systems that agencies need to develop and maintain, the training, development and recruitment programs that they have in place, and the kind of information and support that they need to secure from insurers to enable them to properly advise consumers. The role of agents is especially important for an orderly transition to a more liberalized environment. A deeper understanding of risks developed by agents can help address information gaps in the earlier stages of transition and prevent premiums from over or undershooting their technical levels. This in turn will reduce future volatility in premiums which is important to build confidence in the ability of insurers to meet their promises as expected. Consumers should also be informed that in the first year of transition, they can continue to maintain the same motor insurance coverage at prevailing tariff-rates. This is to provide an opportunity for the public to familiarize themselves with new product options that will become available – a process that agents will play a key role in helping with. Second, agents need to be able to provide higher and more unique value in their services, and they need to be able to do this in a highly flexible way.

Two of them focus on improving cross-border payments by working on interoperability between CBDCs with innovative solutions, such as a liquidity management tool based on decentralised finance technology (AMM, automated market maker), which we upgraded in the first half of 2022. The third experiment aims at deepening previous ones on the use of central bank money as a safe settlement asset for tokenised securities, together with other European partners. It involves issuing and distributing tokenised bonds on a blockchain. ***  Let me conclude by recalling that in the 1980s it was decided to design and build a large glass pyramid in its courtyard of the Louvre. This disruptive architecture by I.M. Peï was first met with outrage, as critics considered it incompatible with classical style. It was nonetheless built, and has since then become a cherished symbol of the Louvre. I hope that we central bankers will find our way to make tokenisation fit in the existing architecture, while regulating it to the extent necessary. Thank you for your attention. And I would now like to hand the floor over to Ms Mairead McGuinness. Page 6 sur 5 Villeroy de Galhau, F., Central banks and finance in the face of a triple revolution, speech, 25 November 2021 Villeroy de Galhau, F., Ethics of currency: a possible guide for central bankers?, Michel Camdessus Central Banking Lecture, 14 September 2022 iii See for instance Waller, C.J., CBDC - A Solution in Search of a Problem?
Future-proofing the payments landscape will be key moving forward Finally, let me turn to the third key priority for payment infrastructures to be future-proofed. Payment systems of the future must be inclusive and able to accommodate the speed of change for implementing new solutions at scale. In this regard, we have achieved a key milestone with the launch of the Real-time Retail Payments Platform (RPP) last year. It is designed to be more scalable, flexible and open to support new use cases such as Proxy Payments, Request-to-Pay, e-Mandates and services to support more seamless customer onboarding processes. The RPP represents the first step of a multi-year journey to future-proof our retail payment infrastructure. Additionally, the Bank is currently embarking on a study to identify possible opportunities to renew or enhance Malaysia’s large value payment system, RENTAS, to support the emerging needs of the economy. Across the board, four key elements will be important. The first is interoperability which can enhance competition and drive greater efficiency through wider network reach and economies of scale. Last year, we established the Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework that facilitates fair and open access for banks and non-banks to shared payment infrastructures such as the RPP. 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  The second element is standardisation, which can improve efficiency and foster the development of new services. For instance, adoption of ISO20022 may provide opportunities for innovations, enhanced fraud and financial crime detection, and improved straight-through processing.

Caleb M Fundanga: Investment opportunities in the Zambian real estate business - the role of the Bank of Zambia Paper presented by Dr Caleb M Fundanga, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, to the International Conference on Investment Opportunities in Zambia - Integrating African Property Markets, Lusaka, 15 June 2005. * •  The Chairperson  •  Distinguished Guests  •  Ladies and Gentlemen  *  *  I feel greatly honoured to have been invited to talk to you on the theme, “Investment Opportunities in the Zambian Real Estate Business: The role of the Bank of Zambia.” From the outset I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Business Week for organising such an important Conference. You will agree with me that this Conference is, perhaps, the first of its kind to have been solely organised by the private sector to look specifically at the issue of investment in the Zambian real estate sector. As you may be aware, investment in the real estate sector is critical to the economic well being of any country, since economic growth alone is insufficient if it does not translate into development, as reflected through better living standards that includes provision of quality and adequate infrastructure, such as, real estate. Real estate can be defined to include physical property and bare land owned by an individual or organisation under freehold or non-freehold tenure. However, for purposes of my discussion this afternoon, I will use the term real estate to mean physical property.
But the moves are still small relative to those we saw ahead of the Referendum. On a day-to-day basis, we continue to use our balance sheet in support of monetary policy and financial stability. Our regular market operations will continue to keep market rates anchored to Bank Rate, and we will continue the programme of gilt reinvestments that maintains the stock of APF purchases at its target level for as long as the MPC choose to maintain it there. And our monthly Indexed Long-Term Repo liquidity facility continues to see regular usage, with £ allocated in September’s operation. Looking further ahead, the TFS is now closed to new drawings, and will gradually unwind in the coming years as banks repay their loans. In June the MPC gave updated guidance that it will not reduce the stock of asset purchases until Bank Rate reaches around 1.5%, and any decision on what happens then will of course be a decision for the MPC of the time and will depend on the economic circumstances prevailing at 28  the time. As and when our balance sheet shrinks, it is likely that its size will return to being determined by the level of SMF participants’ demand for reserves (as well as the amount of banknotes in circulation), rather than by the quantity supplied.

If the effects of these policies are large enough to alter or distort the relationship between asset prices and the underlying fundamentals in our economies, and this seems likely to be the case, then we can take less comfort from traditional relationships between those variables. The fact that official purchases of financial assets are driven by different factors than those driving private investors suggests that we would probably see a somewhat different combination of capital flows, exchange rates and interest rates in the absence of official intervention. This makes the task of assessing the probable trajectory of growth and inflation more complicated. It makes it harder to assess the likely evolution in financial conditions and asset prices. And it makes it harder to assess the effects of the present stance of monetary policy on aggregate demand and inflation. To the extent that these forces act to raise asset prices, lower interest rates and reduce risk premia, it is harder for the markets to assess how much of the very favorable conditions are likely to reflect fundamentals and prove more durable. This can contribute to an increased willingness to raise leverage in the investment community and to take on more exposure to risk.
Institutions are admittedly not accustomed to drawing attention to their forecasts if they do not come completely true. But what are the explanations? It has transpired now that GDP grew last year by more than was forecast, and new national accounts data also show that the figure for 2004 was hugely underestimated. GDP growth then was 8.2%, the highest figure in Iceland since 1987, which was effectively a tax-free year [when Iceland moved onto a PAYE tax system]. Last year was eventful on the economic front. Private consumption grew at its fastest rate since 1987 and gross fixed capital formation faster than any year since 1971. Import growth has not been as brisk in any year since 1953 and the current account deficit broke previous records – although it should be added that as a result of income from soaring foreign asset holdings, Iceland’s net external position only deteriorated slightly. Real wages were at a peak, unemployment at a minimum and direct foreign inward investment ran at a massive level. This inflated picture must be seen in the light of the very robust economic growth in the previous year, 2004, and strong growth in 2003 as well. Besides these large movements, a structural change in the domestic credit market made much more capital available to mortgage borrowers. Higher disposable income and net wealth also contributed to making this a unique period in Icelandic economic history.

The government authorities, the Central Bank and the Financial Supervisory Authority (FME) have already made a formal agreement on joint monitoring of signs of weakness in financial institutions, and contingencies for responding to them. This agreement has been under preparation for a long time, is similar to those in effect in other advanced economies and has nothing to do as such with the current market unease. Developments following the structural changes in the housing mortgage market have left the arrangements for the Housing Financing Fund in an untenable position. Moves to rectify this situation have been unduly delayed. Interest rate formation in this market has become unrealistic as a result, which in turn has an adverse effect on the Central Bank’s efforts to cool the economy. The Prime Minister’s recent declaration concerning the Housing Financing Fund is important and has met a positive response. But the declaration needs to be followed through in practice, as soon as possible. A few years ago it was decided to separate the activities of the Central Bank and banking supervision, drawing on developments elsewhere, in particular in the UK, which had a widespread influence. This may well not have proved as successful everywhere as was hoped. Most of the banks in the UK are foreign banks, and the share of domestic banks is small. The opposite is true in Iceland. In spite of their large and growing activities abroad, all the Icelandic financial institutions are classified as resident companies.