some mergers in the construction sector and suggested a merger of ltsb and hbos. finally, at the end of september, the transparent authorities in england intervened in order to solve the rising difficulties in bradford and bingley, by transferring the deposits and the branch network to abbey santander and by undertaking the remaining assets and liabilities in public ownership, and subsequently closing them in an organized manner. all analysts perceived the events on the financial markets as something unseen ever since the great financial crisis in the period 1929 - 1933 of the previous century. as early as in the second half of september the companies and non - banking financial institutions accelerated their withdrawal even from the short - term financing of the banks, and the banks were increasingly losing the confidence for extending loans to each other. the costs of financing grew tremendously. many institutions could make only overnight borrowing. the credits to the real sector almost stopped. on the financial markets, the trust to the others plummeted to a point below which the investors sought their way out mainly in the government instruments, for example us treasury bills, which at a certain point had a negative yield. distrust went much further than the sub - group of vulnerable banks. the reports reveal that usa and europe have registered market losses from the asset loans of nearly 3 trillion us dollars. regardless of the fact that all these losses will not encumber the banks and can overemphasize the losses of those able to keep the debt until the maturity, the investors and their partners became very concerned about the amount of the actual losses in the banking and trade portfolio in broader scope of the institutions and their capability to continue financing their business. the focus of the concern moved from prospective profitability to prospective survival. that is why the cds premium increased to unprecedented ranges, the prices of the banks'shares plunged, while the money market overdried. the interbank lending margin deepened dramatically, the lending, as i mentioned previously, reduced to only overnight loans. around october 6 and7 even the overnight loans stopped. how did the central banks of the countries in the crisis'epicenter respond? in the beginning, the central banks were committed to provide liquidity as much as necessary. the volume of the liquidity support from the central banks of usa, england, europe was without precedent in the history so far. it included a wide spectrum of measures, including the long - term repo based on broad spectrum of collaterals and introduction of special liquidity patterns enabling the banks to swap ill

petar goshev : brief overview of the financial crisis and its impact opening speech by mr petar goshev, governor of the national bank of the republic of macedonia, at the international economic forum “ faster towards the european union ”, organized by the economic chamber of the republic of macedonia, ohrid, 2 november 2008. * * * honorable president azevski, dear presidents, business leaders, honorable excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. let me thank mr. azevski for the given honor to speak in front of you this evening, in this exceptionally turbulent, exciting and at the same time challenging period in the economic and financial history of the world. from the invitation i can read that i have the honor to address representatives of ten countries in the region, primarily people who face all sorts of challenges in solving the puzzles from the real economic life, every day. from the statistics i looked through, i may conclude that i have the pleasure to speak in front of representatives of nearly 64 million citizens ( 63. 89 in 2007 ), whose gdp was around 507 billion euros altogether in 2007, as opposed to the gdp of 40, 000 billion achieved by the world ( i. e. 1. 27 % of those 40, 000 billion ), in front of the representatives of the 64 million citizens who during the same year exchanged goods and services with the rest of the world in the amount of 295 billion euros, as opposed to the 20. 4 thousand billion of realized foreign trade of the whole world, i. e. a share of 1. 43 %. since the european union has realized gdp of 12. 34 thousand billion of the world's 40, 000 ( which means around 30 % ), our share, i. e. the share of the 10 countries, participants in tomorrow's conference, in the gdp of the 27 eu member states, equals 4. 5 %. ladies and gentlemen, i do not present these figures for pure statistical reasons. it was agreed with president azevski to give you a brief overview of today's hottest issue, " the financial crisis in the world ". management of this crisis, as well the response of each of us individually and jointly of the region, is directly related to the answer to the question in the focus of tomorrow's conference : how to go faster towards the eu? the figures that you are very well aware of, and i only reminded of them, indicate that : we were not in a position