ahmet ismaili : signing of the re - guarantee agreement with the swedish international development cooperation agency greeting speech by mr ahmet ismaili, governor of the central bank of the republic of kosovo, at the confernece " signing of the re - guarantee agreement with the swedish international development cooperation agency ", organised by the kosovo credit guarantee fund and sida, pristina, 7 december 2023. * * * dear mr. azemi, chairman of the kcgf board dear mr. westerlund, ambassador of sweden to kosovo dear ms. hajdari, minister of miet dear mr. berisha, managing director at the kcg dear participants, i am pleased to participate in this special event of signing the renewal agreement of the guarantee facility between the kosovo credit guarantee fund and the swedish international development cooperation agency ( sida ) that has at its centre the opportunities that pave the way for providing the most favourable conditions for reguaranteed loans from kcgf windows, such as the women in business window, export support window and grow window for green investment that enhance energy efficiency and generate energy from renewable resources. commercial banks and other lending institutions such as institutions regulated and supervised by the central bank of the republic of kosovo play an important role in providing lending to different sectors of the country's economy and, at the same time, affecting economic development through consumption, investment and net exports. the kosovo credit guarantee fund, as an independent and developmental legal entity, through guaranteeing the credit portfolio of financial institutions, has historically contributed to increasing access to finance for smes, supporting entrepreneurship, supporting domestic production and services, which create added value, create new jobs and support overall economic development. the continued growth of the kcgf capital, combined with re - guarantee schemes, including today's re - guarantee agreement between the kcgf and the swedish international development cooperation agency, affects the expansion of finance access, increase of competition, reduction of financing gap with competitive conditions, maintenance of the level of non - performing loans and financial stability that are also in accordance with the cbk strategy and mandate. the cbk is committed to supporting any legal and regulatory initiative by the kcgf in the function of expanding membership of ( lending ) microfinance institutions, reviewing 1 / 2 bis - central bankers'speeches deadlines to become part of the kcgf for new banking institutions as well as the possibility for special guarantee schemes of the kcgf for banks to be able to finance microfinance

i will urge banks to actively use the interest rate derivative products like irs and irf to manage interest rate risk in their portfolio so that the need for seeking regulatory relief during periods of stress could be avoided. bis central bankers ’ speeches 12. when we come to interest rate futures, unlike irs, the experience was not encouraging till the launch of single bond cash settled irf in january 2014. the earlier avatars of irfs contracts did not attract enough market interest mainly due to illiquid securities in the underlying basket leading to fear of receiving illiquid securities in delivery based settlement and complex theoretical calculations for cash settled contracts. taking into account the feedback of the market participants, it was decided to introduce cash settled single bond irf on underlying security with residual maturity between 9 – 10 years. the 10 year single bond irf has received good response from the market as the product is simple to understand and is cash settled. in view of success of cash settled 10 year single bond irf and taking into account the request of market participants, exchanges have been permitted to introduce single bond futures for the 4 – 8 year bucket and 12 – 15 year bucket as well. though the daily average trading volume in irfs has shown consistent growth since its introduction in january 2014, the participation in irf is yet to become broad based ( chart 3 ). 13. we also hope that now the single bond cash settled futures have seen some encouraging response from the market, the exchanges could also consider re - launching futures based on a basket, which could be a much more efficient instrument from a hedging perspective. it could also improve liquidity in some of the illiquid bonds. ready forward facility 14. you all know that reserve bank has been undertaking repo / reverse repo transactions with market participants as part of its monetary and liquidity management since 1992. interbank repo facility in government securities was introduced in 2003. the repo market in g - sec, has witnessed considerable growth during the last 10 years ( chart 4 ). leveraging technology and the availability of a robust clearing and settlement mechanism have been instrumental in the migration of the repo market from a pure otc market to an electronic environment. india is among few countries to have anonymous electronic order matching platform with ccp facility for the repo market. the growth of the repo market is evident from the fact that the daily average trading volume has increased from ₹ 106. 72 billion in 2004 – 05 to ₹ 548. 28 billion