look forward to our discussion. 1 these remarks represent my own views, which do not necessarily represent those of the federal reserve board or the federal open market committee. 2 the fed also used its open market operations authority to purchase agency residential and commercial mortgage - backed securities and conducted repo operations with an expanded set of global counterparties. some of the 13 ( 3 ) facilities were versions of those that had been used during the 2008 financial crisis and others were new, such as corporate credit facilities, which directly purchased corporate bonds to support the flow of credit to the economy. all 13 ( 3 ) lending facilities require the approval of the secretary of the treasury. for further details, see board of governors of the federal reserve system ( 2021 ), " funding, credit, liquidity, and loan facilities, " webpage. 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches 3 for a further description of these actions, see board of governors of the federal reserve system ( 2021 ), " supervisory and regulatory actions in response to covid19, " webpage. 4 for a discussion of the 13 ( 3 ) lending facilities and their usage, see board of governors of the federal reserve system ( 2020 ), financial stability report ( pdf ) ( washington : board of governors, november ). 5 this issue is most relevant when the assets purchases are those that the fed can purchase using its open market operations authority, including treasury and agency debt and agency - backed mortgage - backed securities. programs to purchase other types of debt would need the approval of the secretary of the treasury under section 13 ( 3 ) of the federal reserve act. 6 for a discussion of potential reforms, see inter - agency working group on treasury market surveillance ( 2021 ), recent disruptions and potential reforms in the u. s. treasury market : a staff progress report ( pdf ) ( washington : u. s. department of the treasury, november ) ; and inter - agency working group on treasury market surveillance ( 2022 ), enhancing the resilience of the u. s. treasury market : 2022 staff progress report ( pdf ) ( washington : u. s. department of the treasury, november ). 3 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches

fairness and development in the broadest sense would be sacrificed if inflation were left to spiral upward. 4. what is currently happening to inflation, growth and employment? it is by now well - known that the south african government has set a target of 3 to 6 per cent for cpix inflation. in 2002, the actual outcome was 10 per cent. while disappointing, this outcome was not unexpected in the light of the 34 per cent depreciation of the nominal effective exchange rate of the rand during 2001. it fed higher rand prices for imported products into the inflation spiral. in order to brake these inflationary forces, the reserve bank therefore raised its repurchase rate on 4 occasions from january to september 2002, on each occasion by 100 basis points. the 2001 depreciation of the rand was fairly soon reflected in production prices. twelve - month production price inflation accelerated from a low point of 7, 8 per cent in september 2001 to a doubledigit rate of 11, 5 per cent in january 2002 and eventually reached a maximum of 15, 4 per cent in both august and september 2002. consumer prices tend to lag a bit behind production prices, and this is indeed what happened again : twelve - month cpix inflation accelerated from a low point of 5, 8 per cent in september 2001 to double - digit rates from august 2002 and recorded a recent highest level of 12, 7 per cent in november 2002. food prices played an important role in this process. at the production price level twelve - month food price inflation peaked at around 30 per cent, while at the consumer level it peaked at around 20 per cent. for key food items like maize, southern african production fell below demand, driving prices towards import parity - which meant very high levels in rand terms during most of the past 18 months, given what had happened to the exchange rate. but year - on - year inflation rates can be deceptive, making it worthwhile to also analyse shorter - term price movements. one way of doing so is to calculate the percentage change from quarter to quarter in the relevant price index, and then to annualise it. calculated in this way, production price inflation shot up to 25, 8 per cent in the first quarter of 2002, but receded during the course of the year to only 5, 0 per cent in the fourth quarter. consumer prices were much more sticky ; annualised cpix inflation on balance accelerated from 11, 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2002 to 14, 5