dear mrs. olmstead, honorable ambassador rohde, dear mr. berisha, it is a special pleasure to be part of this ceremony that marks a very important step in the launch of the green recovery and opportunity window, where through the kosovo credit guarantee fund, access to finance for businesses investing in renewable energy and in energy efficiency will be facilitated. the launch of this project designed and funded by the millennium challenge corporation and the millennium foundation kosovo, and with the capital donated by kfw shows the continued support of our international friends for the development of the kosovo credit guarantee fund and in general for the development of kosovo's economy. the kosovo credit guarantee fund within a relatively short period of time has managed to become a very important institution for increasing the facilitation of financing for the country's economy. financial institutions play a very important role in financing the green economy, so this project will significantly help promote and further stimulate the green transition. this project will also enable the increase of the guarantee potential of this institution, making possible the increase of the number of beneficiaries from the guarantees issued by this institution. in other words, a large number of businesses with difficulty in accessing finance will be able to provide easy access to this source of funding. bank lending continues to be a very important and sustainable source of private sector financing in kosovo. the value of bank loans with data of april 2022 has reached 4 billion euros, or an annual increase of 17. 9 %. however, despite the satisfactory trend of increasing bank lending, it is considered that the level of financial intermediation in kosovo continues to be below the average of countries in the region, which indicates the possibility that this window and the kcgf is giving to increase the rate of financial intermediation in kosovo. the opening of this window also plays an important role. in this context, we expect that in addition to supporting the growth of credit financing in general, the kcgf portfolio is increasingly reflecting the growth of credit support for sectors with greater difficulties in accessing credit financing, but which have potential to make a significant contribution to the economic development of the country. for this reason, the opening of this window and many other windows within the kcgf, have to do with the fact that we need to support businesses, which have difficulty accessing finance. today, if we look at the structure of the country's economy in kosovo, we have a structure of the economy that is mainly dominated by commercial

across the euro area, where widespread deleveraging by financial institutions has led to a contraction in the volume of credit, as shown in chart 7. the recent imf report that i mentioned earlier noted the strong performance of malta ’ s financial sector but also stressed the importance of strengthening the resilience of the sector. bis central bankers ’ speeches the elevated levels of credit and concentration risks call for stronger financial buffers, through higher provisioning and retention of profits. such measures would strengthen the banks ’ ability to absorb potential shocks and would also allow them to prepare themselves for compliance with stricter basel iii regulatory requirements. on the positive side, credit risk is being mitigated by prudent credit standards and cautious lending behaviour on the part of the banks. on the funding side, the resilience displayed by the banking system in the face of adverse international conditions is explained by the business model that has been a traditional characteristic of domestic banks, which rely strongly on retail deposits. another indication of the overall prudent bias of the maltese domestic banks is evident in the first chart presented earlier, which shows that leverage ratios of maltese banks are considerably lower than in euro area in general. while the euro area average has declined on account of widespread deleveraging, the ratio remains significantly higher than the maltese ratio, which has been quite stable. a further indication of the traditional funding model is the loan to deposit ratio, as shown in chart 8, which is significantly low when compared with the major economies. this business model has served the domestic banking sector well. the traditional sources of funding have proven to be very stable, including at a time of heightened tensions in the international financial markets. while taking on the changes that are needed to remain competitive and improve efficiency, the domestic banking sector must also continue to build upon the strengths of the traditional model. among the many lessons that may be drawn from the experience of the international financial crisis, one that stands out is the importance for each banking institution to keep a prudent mix of dependable sources of funding, to limit the level of financial leverage and to maintain a sound balance sheet. source : central bank of malta ; international monetary fund conclusion in summary i would like to conclude by stressing the need for further efforts to maintain international competitiveness and continued vigilance in the banking sector, in the context of bis central bankers ’ speeches recurring uncertainty in international financial markets and in the world economy. with this in mind, one has to acknowledge that although the relative