recognising that there is a great deal that they themselves can do through partnership - including public - private partnership - to help create a more positive supply - side environment at the regional and local level. that partnership typically embraces not only issues facing the mainstream economy but extends to direct involvement in activities designed to draw into the mainstream economy communities which for one reason or another are liable to be left on the sidelines, but which, if they are given the right opportunities, clearly can contribute to both the economic prosperity and the social cohesion of the region. and i find that positive approach here too in the west midlands. it's very much the purpose of this conference - organised by awm - advantage west midlands - alongside the iod and the ica. it's the purpose, too, for example, of the west midlands regional finance forum organised by awm and bringing together the banks and accountants, representatives of the ethnic minorities and community finance organisations - including aston reinvestment trust, as well as academics and the small business service, with the aim of improving access to finance for business at all levels. you've already come a long way in the west midlands. you have weathered the international storm in your more traditional industries far better than might have been expected, and you have been relatively successful in diversifying into higher value - added and more knowledge - based industries. i wish i could claim that life will get easier looking forward to 2020 - but i can't promise that and you wouldn't believe me anyway! but what i do say is that working together, with your “ can - do ” attitude, you are as well placed as anywhere to overcome the challenges ahead - and i wish you all possible success.

peak to trough over much the same period by over 16 % in japan, by 7½ % in the us and by 6½ % in germany ; and manufacturing employment fell by 7¼ % in japan, 9½ % in the us and nearly 3 % in germany. so the pressures on manufacturing were not confined to, nor did they originate in this country. there are two main reasons for the pressures on the internationally - exposed sectors of our economy. the first is the weakness of much of the global economy as a result of the asia crisis and its aftermath in the late 1990's, and then, more recently, as a result of the sharp, synchronised, slowdown in the major industrial countries - as reflected in the figures i've just given you. the second reason is the strength of the sterling exchange rate, or more particularly the weakness of the euro for most of the time since its introduction some 3½ years ago. the frustrating thing for us has been that that there was very little that either we at the bank or the uk government could do directly to address the problems at source. that's fairly obvious when we are talking about the weakening of domestic demand in other major countries. it's perhaps less obvious that we couldn't have done more to affect the exchange rate. it's not that we didn't care - as has sometimes been suggested. in fact we've repeatedly made it clear that we'd welcome a stronger euro because that could help to restore a better balance to the uk economy. the problem has been that we didn't know how to bring it about, certainly without destabilising the overall economy. many people think it's simply a question of reducing our interest rate by more than the ecb reduced theirs. but it really isn't as simple as that makes it sound. we did indeed do precisely that last year but sterling continued to strengthen - though it has in fact fallen back somewhat against the euro since as the euro has staged a moderate recovery. what we were able to do - given that inflation was somewhat below target - was to try to compensate for the external weakness by stimulating domestic demand here in the uk. in a situation where business confidence - and therefore investment - was weak, that essentially meant stimulating consumer demand. it was not without risk - in terms of the build - up of household debt and of a possible house price bubble - but without it we, too, would have faced recession. looking