countries save to finance their deficits, growth is normally decreased a bit. after a few years, the countries can however reap the fruits of a more stable economy, in terms of lower inflation and higher growth. successful programs also have a positive effect on social policy in the countries. expenditure on education and healthcare in the poorest program countires increased by four per cent per capita between 1985 and 1998, and these areas now account for a larger share of the government budgets. countries with imf programs have seen more children in schools, increased literacy and access to clean water, and lower child mortality. swedish participation in the imf sweden is one of the creditor countries in the imf. in the board we share a seat together with the seven other nordic and baltic countries. as well as other country groups, we have an office in washington with representatives who work full time on pursuing our interests on the board. i worked at this office myself for over four years as nordic - baltic representative in the board. our board representatives receive guidance from their home countries on important issues and statements in the board are coordinated among our countries in advance. in sweden, the riksbank has the main responsibility for contacts with washington, but all issues are coordinated with the government offices where the ministry of finance is our contact. in certain cases, there is also consultation with the ministry for foreign affairs. the nordic and baltic countries are small on the board - our combined voting power is just over 3. 5 % of that of the imf as a whole. our opportunities to pursue policies on the board are in having sensible points of view on the proposals that are on the agenda and, together with other countries, trying to influence proposals so that they move in the direction we want them to. to some extent, we have an advantage in appearing independent on the board, since we represent neither the most influential creditors within g7 nor the large group of debtor countries. this means that our statements sometimes have more weight than our voting powers indicate. let me give three examples of issues where our countries have been actively involved in the imf. the first concerns the transparency of the imf. in sweden, we are accustomed to authorities publishing their decisions and their way of dealing with items. many international organisations on the other hand operate behind closed doors. however, the imf has become considerably more open in recent years, and today material on almost all activities is available, not least on the imf ’ s website ( www

close to target of 2 per cent in our monetary policy report we expect inflation to remain fairly close to the inflation target of 2 per cent during the forecast period. this is because, despite strong gdp growth, resource utilisation will be low, and this will hold back domestic inflationary pressure. inflationary impulses from abroad will also be weak. but as economic activity recovers and resource utilisation rises, inflationary pressures will increase. our assessment was therefore that underlying inflation – measured in terms of the cpif, the consumer price index with a fixed interest rate – would fall towards 1 per cent this year, and then rise towards 2 per cent at the end of 2012. cpi inflation, on the other hand, had increased during the spring, and we expected it to continue to increase as a result of rising interest rates, until it peaks at almost 3 per cent in 2013. ( figure : inflation ). following the monetary policy meeting at the end of june, new inflation figures have been published for june and july. these show that the cpi and the cpif rose by 1. 1 and 1. 7 per cent respectively in july, compared with the same month last year. inflation is so far in line with the assessments in the monetary policy report : in july underlying inflation was only 0. 1 of a percentage point lower than the forecast in our report. long - term inflation expectations it is important to the riksbank that long - term inflation expectations in society are anchored securely around the inflation target of 2 per cent. this makes our work easier. if most people expect inflation to be 2 per cent, this affects price - setting and wage - formation, so that we can more easily attain the inflation target in the long term ( even if short - term fluctuations cause inflation to deviate from the target level ). this is the reason why we carefully follow inflation expectations. according to a survey from prospera, inflation expectations for the coming five - year period were on average 2. 2 per cent in june. this figure represents an average for all respondents. ( figure : inflation and inflation expectations ). recovery in the swedish economy to summarise, the new information presented during the summer supports the riksbank ’ s view that the swedish economy is continuing to recover. gdp growth has so far this year been slightly higher than we had expected, and the labour market has shown slightly stronger development. inflation has largely been in line with our forecasts. but this does not say very