loans societies, ten major superannuation funds and six life insurance companies. over the last two years, two commercial banks were sold and amalgamated into the operations of the other two existing banks. in line with its new powers under the bfia 2000, the central bank initiated enforcement actions against a number of institutions, including the former government owned commercial bank and finance companies, in an attempt to rectify problems that threatened depositors ’ funds or the overall stability of the financial system. the central bank also instituted care - taker management for a few large savings and loan societies under the savings and loan societies act, and liquidated 76 dormant societies as part of its revitalisation programme. legal action was also taken against several fast - money schemes that continue to solicit deposits from the public. new initiatives the bank issued new standards on foreign currency exposures on 28 september 2001, setting a limit of 10 percent of bank capital for any single foreign currency exposure, and 15 percent of capital for total foreign currency exposures. the new standard also requires banks to report their exposures each day to the central bank in electronic format. the bank is reviewing the existing prudential standards ( i. e. regulations ) covering capital adequacy, large exposures, and asset quality and provisioning that applies to banks and finance companies, with the ta from the imf. these prudential standards have been reviewed and implementation will take commence in 2003. new polices are now being drafted to place limits on shareholdings and market share of the banks. 3. latest economic and outlook for 2003 economic growth preliminary estimates of economic activity indicate that real gdp declined by 0. 5 percent in 2002, following a revised decline of 3. 4 percent in 2001. the decline was due to the continued depressed levels of activity in the mineral, building and construction, retail and wholesale, and electricity, gas and water sectors. for 2003, real gdp is projected to increase by 1. 8 percent with growth in both the mineral and non - mineral sectors. the agriculture / forestry / fisheries sector is forecasted to grow by 2. 9 percent in 2003, reflecting increased production of all agricultural export commodities. balance of payments preliminary balance of payments data for 2002 showed an overall deficit mainly reflecting a widening current account deficit, due to lower merchandise exports of most agricultural commodities, gold, copper, crude oil, forestry and marine exports, combined with higher imports and net service payments. the level of gross official reserves at the end of

. professional speculators were easy to blame for fluctuations in market prices that actually reflected fundamental shifts in supply or demand, as they are today. the market clearing process is a very abstract concept. it is sometimes far easier to envisage price changes as the consequence of individual manipulators. indeed, for a lot of nineteenth - century ring traders, it was some measure of manhood ( women were few ) that they could squeeze or corner a market. the evidence suggests that this was largely walter middy - type fantasy. in any event, the grain futures act of 1922 established many of the key elements of our current regulatory framework for derivatives. in general, the act was designed to confine futures trading to regulated futures exchanges. the act made it unlawful to trade futures on exchanges other than those designated as contract markets by the secretary of agriculture. the secretary was permitted to so designate an exchange only if certain conditions were met. these included the establishment of procedures for recordkeeping and reporting of futures transactions, for prevention of dissemination of false or misleading crop or market information, and for prevention of price manipulation or cornering of markets. finally, the act recognized the need to permit bona fide derivatives transactions to be executed off of the regulated exchanges ; it explicitly excluded forward contracts for the delivery of grain from the exchange - trading requirement. forward contracts were essentially defined as contracts for future delivery to which farmers or farm interests were counterparties or in which the seller, if not a farmer, owned the grain at the time of making the contract. the next major piece of federal legislation affecting futures regulation was the commodity exchange act ( cea ) of 1936. as in the case of the grain futures act, an important objective of the cea was to discourage forms of speculation that were seen as exacerbating price volatility. in addition, the cea introduced provisions designed primarily to protect small investors in commodity futures, whose participation had been increasing and was viewed as beneficial. these provisions included requirements for the registration of futures commission merchants ( fcms ), that is, futures brokers, and for the segregation of customer funds from fcm funds. the cea also expanded the coverage of futures regulation to cover contracts for cotton, rice, and certain other specifically enumerated commodities traded on futures exchanges, and prohibited the trading of options on commodities traded on futures exchanges. the federal regulatory framework for derivatives market regulation then remained substantially unchanged until 1974, when congress enacted the commodity futures trading commission act. the