smes from access to markets : - where markets are present, the site are not serviced with necessary social amenities. - smes lack market information and marketing skills. - lack of adequate local markets. - inadequate, inefficient and ineffective distribution and supply network in the local market, such that products / service takes time before reaching target markets. - limited capacity to meet sme expectations in terms of providing finance as well as providing non - financial support. - entrepreneurship skills training into both practical and non - practical sector specific training in order to achieve relevancy to the needs of the small business community. as you may all be aware, smes play critical role in the country ’ s economic development. smes are often considered as the drive to creating local demand and consumption. in fact, smes related matters are high priorities on the government agenda. on that note, the central bank in coordination with government is closely working with the commercial banks in light of the risks associated with sme finance, to come up with a strategy for sme lending. the central bank is also currently engaged in exploring the feasibility to expand participation in the credit information system ( cis ) to all lenders not regulated by the central bank, including government lending agencies or programs and commercial firms that engage in hire ‐ purchase activities. in this regard work is being undertaken with the world bank to enact a credit information system law which would broaden the scope of the cis in seychelles to include other entities and activities that are not regulated by the central bank. furthermore, with the aim of modernising the national payment system, by broadening the scope of innovative payments schemes and reducing paper instruments as a means for payment, the central bank in collaboration with the seychelles banking association are looking into the possibility of implementing a national payment switch. ladies and gentlemen, with no doubt, services provided by the financial system has a prime impact on economic growth. the level of development plays a significant role in the growth of businesses, enhancing innovation and competition. it is however, equally important that in support of the broader objective of financial sector development and financial inclusion, access to financial services are of the highest quality and convenience, affordable and also operated in an environment where consumers are adequately protected. ensuring that there is an effective consumer protection framework to address the balance of power between financial institutions and their consumers is vital in order to enhance public confidence in the financial system and the use of innovative financial services. there is no need for me to overempha

with national treasuries. i would also like to use this opportunity to draw your attention to ongoing modelling work at the ecb. we are working to incorporate financial frictions and an effective asset purchase programme into our euro area wide structural macroeconomic model, the new area - wide model ( coenen and co - authors, 2017 ). similar efforts apply to the new multi - country model that is now being developed and includes a more granular treatment of the financial sector. the new area4 / 9 bis central bankers'speeches wide model aims to take into account the importance of bank - based financing in the euro area as well as the importance of open economy considerations. the estimated model finds a relevant role for both financial imperfections and shocks emanating from the financial sector in explaining business cycle fluctuations and propagation in the euro area. the app is effective in the framework, because the central bank can temporarily improve the balance sheet constraints of financial intermediaries, which then leads to better credit conditions, improving the economic outlook and raising the inflation rate. the ensuing lower term premium, furthermore, depreciates the exchange rate to satisfy an arbitrage condition between the local and foreign long - term sovereign debt markets. this exchange rate channel increases consumer prices, with marginal impact on output, not unlike those identified by dedola and co - authors ( 2017 ). this new version of the framework will continue to help us form a consistent view about conjunctural developments and will be applied to analyse the quantitative impact of alternative policy scenarios. so what have i learned about qe programmes and specifically the app? a key question is how large a balance sheet the ecb should maintain in the long - term. this issue is broader than just the question about a possible “ permanent qe ” addressed in the paper by harrison ( 2017 ) from the perspective of its contribution, to a reduction in the frequency of zero lower bound episodes. he concludes that the contribution would be small and therefore dismisses the case for what he calls “ permanent qe ”. the debate about the size of the central banks ’ balance sheets however, refers mainly to other objectives. in the 2016 jackson hole symposium, two papers by duffie and krishnamurthy and by greenwood, hanson and stein, 4 see duffie, d. and a. krishnamurthy, ( 2016 ), “ pass - through efficiency in the fed ’ s new monetary policy setting ”, presented at the 2016 jackson hole symposium of the