honourable minister shala, honourable chairman of the cbk board, mr mrasori, honourable deputy governor, representatives of financial institutions, honourable participants, ladies and gentlemen, i am pleased that today we are all together marking the world consumer rights day, which is now transformed into an annual activity for the central bank of the republic of kosovo. the special feature of today's organization is that this is happening within the activities of marking the 20th anniversary of the establishment of cbk, so we are in a good moment to reflect on the development of kosovo's financial system over these 20 years and our orientation for the development of this sector in the future. kosovo started developing the financial system in 1999, at a time when everything had to be developed from the outset. the first years of cbk's operation were mainly related to the construction of the basic infrastructure necessary for the functioning of the financial system, starting from the regulatory and supervisory framework, the payment system and so on. over time, together with the highly valued support from our international partners, cbk managed to advance its capacities at the same level with the central banks of countries with a longer tradition of the financial system. cbk went through different development stages, and so did the financial institutions operating in kosovo. the first years of their operation were quite challenging, because they operated in an environment of high uncertainty and significant lack of information. nevertheless, the improvements made in the financial infrastructure and in the overall business environment in kosovo, together with the growth of maturity of financial institutions and cbk during these 20 years, have resulted in a modern and sound financial system that is successfully implementing its role of financial intermediation in support of the sustainable development of the country's economy. nowadays, our financial system is generally characterized by steady growth of activity and a very satisfactory level of financial health indicators. whereas, in the first years of operation of the financial system, the focus was on creating the conditions for providing basic financial services for the country's economy, now we have reached a level where more attention is given to the quality of these services, where undoubtedly, activities aiming consumer protection of financial services occupy a very important place. for us, consumer protection activities represent a daily task that we exercise with the utmost seriousness, and this day will be used as an opportunity to make a general reflection on these activities. consumer protection is not a single action, but an entire process that promotes responsible behaviour of financial institutions by incorporating various aspects that, besides protecting the

of monetary policy. the importance of communication for the effectiveness of monetary policy rests on the fact that monetary policy measures influence only current short - term interest rates. the success of monetary policy to a very large extent depends on the degree to which it can affect expectations about future developments, for instance, the expected rate of inflation and the expected sequence of future shortterm interest rates. the key aspect in this respect is the anchoring of inflation expectations at levels consistent with price stability. communication and transparency therefore have to be structured in a way that helps to achieve this primary objective. so, leaving aside the aspect of transparency in a democratic system, communication and transparency have no intrinsic value of their own. consequently, monetary policy has to balance carefully the respective benefits and costs in order to reap possible gains in terms of improved policy effectiveness and credibility. and while it is true that, ultimately, words have to be followed and confirmed by actions as they otherwise remain empty, it is equally true that explaining monetary policy in addition to merely announcing decisions taken is always important. consequently, in my view, communication has to be analysed as an integral part the overall monetary policy framework – and not in isolation this is where the monetary policy strategy becomes important. an explicit strategy is basically the tool with which central banks provide an analytical framework to establish consistency between a sequence of short - term monetary policy measures derived from current economic conditions and longterm objectives. an explicit rule - based strategic framework fulfils many important tasks. it enables observers to understand how economic data are analysed and transformed into the central bank ’ s assessment of the current policy stance and risks. at the same time, in doing so, it reduces the need for more continuous direct communication. moreover, an explicit strategy helps to de - personalise the monetary policy framework and thereby to provide continuity of the decision - making process. this offers clear advantages compared with an implicit strategy of “ just do it ”. however, since the specific way by which economic data is transformed into a coherent policy choice is by no means self - explanatory, and thus communication has a key role to play in order to explain the analysis underlying policy decisions, and to avoid that external observers have to adopt a complex learning process in order to understand the policy framework. both aspects should help to limit market participants ’ uncertainty about the conduct of monetary policy, thereby reducing inflation persistence and lowering macroeconomic volatility. 2. 2 communication and strategy : some issues related to the