an upward interest rate adjustment lies with us. the dutch success up to now has not been achieved overnight. it is the upshot of a long and consistent road which wim duisenberg has done a great deal to shape. iii wim duisenberg comes from friesland. what is puzzling is how he comes by the name of duisen - berg. as you know, friesland is so flat that you only need to stand on a newspaper to be able to overlook the entire countryside. frisians are supposed to be very attached to their native locality, which is by no means the same thing as being “ provincial ”. and they are said to be, above all, indomitable, which the uninitiated sometimes interpret as “ self - willed ”. but that doesn ’ t matter. as you will know, such a characterisation is not entirely unknown for a westphalian, either. that is hardly surprising. after all, our birth - places are only 120 kilometres apart. there were signs of wim duisenberg ’ s international vocation at an early age. as a student he was particularly interested in international economic relations. he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic : “ the economic consequences of disarmament ”. and he worked for the international monetary fund for five years. but then he responded to the call of his homeland. there was nowhere he was not needed. economic research needed him. he became a professor of macroeconomics in amsterdam. the government needed him. he became the minister of finance at an early age. actually, that ’ s a contradiction in terms. youth, after all, tends to be idealistic and impetuous, whereas age tends rather to be distrustful and wary. and a finance minister needs to be highly distrustful and wary. the banking industry needed him. he joined a commercial bank. and finally the central bank needed him. he became its governor, which elicited from him the following comment : “ it ’ s the best job... the pity is that there ’ s only one such job per country. ” well, being central bank governor in the netherlands is a longer - term occupation. anyway, i don ’ t know any other country that has had only three governors in the past fifty years. his spell as governor did not begin very auspiciously. against his advice, the guilder was devalued against the d - mark as part of the major realignment within

development of the banking system in the recipient country. and, here, the degree of confidence is key. iv. efforts to channel remittances through banks and other licensed or registered financial service providers are to be welcomed for several reasons. one important point is that the balance of payments can more accurately reflect economic transactions of migrants who are working abroad and transferring money home. therefore, we are ready to support initiatives to ensure that everybody has the possibility of transferring money home in an easily accessible, secure and efficient way. for example, the bundesbank took part in the task force on remittances set up by the committee on payment and settlement systems and the world bank. this task force agreed on “ general principles for international remittance services ”, which focus on payment system aspects. furthermore, we take part in international efforts to improve the data on remittances. my colleague jens walter pointed out this morning that the remittance market has to cope with various statistical problems. owing to the multitude of channels used for remittances, it remains difficult to capture the whole picture of personal cross - border remittances. the channels vary with respect to the country concerned and the individual remitter involved. in this regard, different demographic structures and financial systems of the residing and receiving countries, convenience and cost of the remitting method are important. owing to the – usually – small amounts remitted per transaction and the multitude of channels, the compilation of exact and complete statistics remains a difficult task. i am convinced that our conference will contribute to a better understanding of the economic role of remittances. remittance flows are an important and stable source of funds for many countries. they are a substantial part of financial inflows for countries with a large migrant labour force. although not all money transfers are captured in official statistics, formal remittances nevertheless constitute the second largest source of external funding for developing countries, exceeded only by foreign direct investments. they are ahead of both capital market flows and official development assistance. for some developing countries, remittances account for an even higher share than fdi. current trends suggest that remittance flows will continue to increase in the next few years. ladies and gentlemen, i firmly believe that this conference will help to make remittances easier, cheaper and more secure. even if germany offers the best possible conditions for sending remittances, improvements might still be needed in some receiving countries.