lvts participants facing shortfalls in their end - of - day settlement balances. 7 second, our emergency lending assistance, which has rarely been put to use, provides extraordinary liquidity support to solvent institutions that are facing serious and persistent liquidity problems. the leverage of the canadian banks was capped by the existence of the asset - to - capital multiple set by the office of the superintendent of financial institutions. see a. crawford, c. graham, and e. bordeleau, “ regulatory constraints on leverage : the canadian experience, ” bank of canada financial system review ( june 2009 ) : 45 – 50. see m. k. brunnermeier and l. h. pedersen, “ market liquidity and funding liquidity, ” review of financial studies, 22, no. 6 ( june 2009 ) : 2201 – 38 ; and markus k. brunnermeier, “ deciphering the liquidity and credit crunch 2007 – 2008, ” journal of economic perspectives, 23, no. 1 ( winter 2009 ) : 77 – 100. the overnight rate is the key means for achieving the bank ’ s monetary policy objectives and the anchor of the yield curve. often referred to as a “ repo, ” or repurchase agreement, a pra is a transaction in which the bank of canada offers to purchase government of canada securities from designated counterparties with an agreement to resell them at a predetermined price the next business day. special pras ( spras ) are transactions initiated by the bank and are used to reinforce the target rate if overnight funds are generally trading above the target ; these instruments add liquidity to the system. alternatively, sale and repurchase agreements ( sras ) are used when overnight funds are generally trading below the target rate ; these remove liquidity from the system. see bank of canada, 2004, “ bank of canada lender - of - last - resort policies, ” bank of canada financial system review ( december ) : 49 – 55, and f. daniel, w. engert, and d. maclean, 2004 – 2005, “ the bank of canada as lender of last resort. ” bank of canada review ( winter ) : 3 – 16. when lvts participants are in deficit at the end of the day, and therefore need to access the standing liquidity facility, aggregate participant deposits at the bank of canada will exceed the target for net settlement balances. this simple set of facilities

rate of increase in the cpi ( all items less fresh food, excluding the direct effects of the consumption tax hikes ) was 1. 3 percent for fiscal 2014, 1. 9 percent for fiscal 2015, and 2. 1 percent for fiscal 2016. b. overseas economies i would now like to give an overview of overseas economies. these are expected to moderately increase their growth rates as advanced economies continue to see firm recovery and its positive effects gradually spread to emerging economies. according to the projections for global economic growth released by the international monetary fund ( imf ) in april 2014 in its world economic outlook, global growth is projected to strengthen to 3. 6 percent in 2014 and then to 3. 9 percent in 2015, rising at a moderate pace to reach a rate exceeding its long - term average. looking at respective major countries and regions, in the united states, real gdp for the january - march quarter of 2014 decreased from the previous quarter, mainly due to the effects of the unusually severe winter weather, but has returned to a moderate recovery trend. as for the outlook, the pace of recovery is expected to gradually rise, led mainly by private demand – such as firm private consumption – as accommodative financial conditions are expected to be maintained and fiscal drag is likely to weaken. the euro area economy is recovering moderately, registering positive growth for four consecutive quarters. although faced with structural problems such as excess debt, it is expected to continue recovering moderately, supported in part by improvement in household and business sentiment. regarding risks to the economy, close attention needs to be paid to a possible prolonged disinflationary trend and the effects of the situation in ukraine and russia. the chinese economy continues to see stable growth, although it has been growing at a somewhat reduced pace, mainly in real estate - related areas. the chinese authorities have taken the stance of continuing to pay consideration to economic activity while progressing with structural reforms, and already have taken some policy measures to underpin economic activity. in addition, external demand is expected to continue improving moderately, mainly in advanced economies, and thus the chinese economy is likely to continue to see stable growth, albeit at a slightly slower pace. meanwhile, some of the other emerging and commodity - exporting economies remain weak in a situation where they are facing issues regarding, for example, current account balance and inflation rates. these economies will likely continue to lack growth momentum for the time being, but are expected to gradually increase their growth rates due to positive effects of the recovery