after all, isn ’ t it hard enough for people just to achieve the output they delivered last year, let alone produce more? we know electricity shortages have intensified ; we expect to have 250 days of load - shedding this year, from 157 days last year and 48 days in 2021. on top of that, the freight rail system has, for the most part, not been functioning optimally, removing another pillar of the economy ’ s productive potential. there are many other constraints in the economy that also suppress potential growth. for our forecast team, these are facts that must be faced squarely, and it ’ s better to accept them up front than gradually mark down the projections as disappointing data come in. of course, it is reasonable to expect that south africans will find ways to cope with these challenges, and that there will be policy steps to address them with time. for this reason, potential growth rises over the forecast period, reaching 1 % in 2025. but the narrative for this year is that the economy does not have the supply - side capacity to produce more than it did last year. at the same time ‒ and this is the second interpretation ‒ is it possible for the economy to be at full potential when unemployment is over 30 %? the quarterly employment survey recorded 10. 57 million formal jobs at the end of 2019, against 9. 98 million now. 9 were all those workers unproductive, so that recovering those roughly half - amillion jobs would add nothing to output? are all sectors in the economy at full capacity? can potential realistically be at zero? these competing views are not wholly incompatible. they both capture important truths. the main point of the comparison is to illustrate how the economy is short of some inputs, like electricity, but there is slack in other areas, such as employment. in these conditions, what the mpc is trying to gauge is the space to satisfy additional demand and follow through on what that means for monetary policy. the difficult part, for the mpc, is judging how much we can do to help on the demand side when the supply side of the economy is in such a perilous state. in common with many other central banks, we are flexible inflation targeters. we aim to achieve our inflation targets while also considering growth ; if inflation is above target but there is a negative output gap, then we can tolerate a somewhat slower disinflation path for the sake of supporting demand. no one really targets inflation exclusively,

of this is our new rules on collective investment undertakings, which will underpin bahrain ’ s position as the region ’ s leading funds centre, by introducing – for the first time – regulations specifically geared for expert funds and other alternative asset classes, such as hedge funds. collectively, these initiatives have aimed to ensure that bahrain maintains its leading role as a financial centre, in terms of responding to evolving market demands. i am pleased to say that these efforts were positively acknowledged by the imf last year, in their financial sector assessment review of bahrain. but we are not complacent, and we will be continuing to develop our regulations in light of market needs and evolving standards. on this note, let me now turn to my colleague from the edb, shaikh mohammed bin khalifa al - khalifa, who will present in more detail bahrain ’ s financial sector.