continent, as a member of the association of african central banks ( aacb ), we will continue to contribute to the objective of the creation of a central bank of the continent. final remarks ladies and gentlemen, we would like to express our profound recognition of the valuable contribution that all national economic agents, the society in general and the international community has been giving us in order to fulfil our mission, particularly in respect of the formulation and execution of a monetary policy in conformity with the objectives of economic growth, with low inflation. allow me to address special thanks to the employees of the national financial system and in particular, to the collaborators of the banco de mocambique, for their devotion and commitment demonstrated during the year. i finish wishing you all and your distinct families, merry christmas and a prosperous new year. thank you very much.

mandate. in the case of equities, i believe that we cannot hold a strong conviction in either regard. the link between overnight reserves and prices of equities is too remote and indirect, and the impact of equity prices on the balance of aggregate supply and demand is too uncertain, for those prices to be a target of policy. to be clear, this is not an argument for never considering prices in asset markets when determining how well we are likely to do in achieving our goals. monetary policymakers follow developments in the equity and other asset markets as part of the process of evaluating and forecasting economic conditions. that is, the values of equity claims affect spending decisions and help forecast economic activity. but, in that regard, a similar role is played by many other important determinants of spending, including long - term interest rates, the foreign exchange value of the currency, the government's fiscal position, and economic activity abroad. we can employ our one instrument to temper or augment the net effect of changes in these factors on spending and production, but we do not have the tools to respond to each individually. our tool is most efficiently deployed to adjust overnight interest rates. there is a more general principle at work here. no doubt, the balance sheet of the federal reserve is large and the attention paid to our pronouncements intense. nobody would deny that central banks can be quite powerful and that monetary policy works, over time. but in the scheme of things, a central bank's ability to smooth asset prices ( if it wanted to ) or to buffer shocks to spending or production is somewhat limited. the textbooks teach that monetary policymakers can vary interest rates to offset fluctuations in aggregate demand. the reality is that when the shortfall in desired spending is large or arises quite quickly, as was the case last year when businesses slashed their investment plans in light of a perceived overhang of capital, the initial monetary policy offset can be only partial and not necessarily synchronous. eventually, of course, monetary policy does work ; but the lags continue to be unpredictable and both the level of rates and the time required for policy to have the desired equilibrating impact depend greatly on the force of the macroeconomic instability that must be confronted and are not knowable at the start of a cyclical event. similarly, the central bank can meet elevated demands for liquidity during times of crisis, but the private sector cannot look to the central bank to eliminate all risk, just