where we talk with and listen to people from all walks of life. we set out some of the high - level themes from those conversations in a report from the chairs of the regional panels published today. what we hear from them is sobering. at a recent citizens ’ panel in leeds, for example, a young woman shared her story of trying to juggle studies with caring responsibilities for her parents. higher costs of transport, food and heating had left her struggling to cope, let alone to make the most of her time at university. in manchester, a carer told us how higher fuel prices had eaten into her pay as she relied on private transport to deliver vital services to vulnerable people. a woman at our panel in durham told us how she received her pay on a weekly basis and struggled to budget for her monthly direct debits. although she had health concerns, she felt unable financially to take time off from her full - time work. she told us she had cut back on all but the most essential purchases. we hear many such stories. for many people, this really is a cost of living crisis. let me provide some wider context. the uk economy has been hit by a series of significant economic shocks. these include the change in our trading relationship with the european union, the covid pandemic with associated bottlenecks in global supply chains, and the sharp rise in global energy prices related to russia ’ s brutal war on ukraine and its people. for the united kingdom, these shocks have eroded the terms on which we trade with the outside world. the prices we can get for the goods we sell have not kept up with the prices we have to pay for the goods we buy. this has made us poorer as a country. the fall in our national real income has manifested itself in a rise in the prices we have to pay for the things we buy as consumers. the developments in energy prices have been particularly stark. the impact of that is very clear in the data so forgive me for spending a bit of time setting that out too. chart 1 : cpi inflation projection with direct energy contribution based on market interest rate expectations the purple bars on this chart show that a big part of the rise in consumer price inflation has been caused directly by energy prices. but the chart also shows the almost mechanical flipside of that. in the mpc ’ s central projection, inflation falls quite sharply over 2023 as last year ’ s large increases in energy prices drop out of the annual calculation.

well as the highly accommodative financing conditions which have been passed through to lower borrowing costs for euro area firms. the resilience of the recovery reflects the strength of domestic demand which in turn, is being supported by the very favourable financing conditions stemming from the monetary policy measures introduced since june 2014 ( see chart 1 ). 1 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches source : bloomberg, ecb, ecb calculations. 1 ecb staff counterfactual simulations indicate that absent our measures, gdp - weighted euro area 10 - year government bond yields would, at present, be about 154 basis points higher and lending rates to nfcs about 68 basis points higher. ecb staff estimates indicate that our measures are contributing to an increase in euro area gdp of around 1. 7 %, cumulatively over the period 2016 – 2019 ( see chart 2 ) – well above monetary policy ’ s contribution to the two previous euro area recoveries in 2003q2 - 2006q4 and 2009q3 - 2011q3. 2 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches 3 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches sources : ecb computations, sapi task force, september 2017 mpe, bmes. 2 looking ahead, the latest ecb staff projections continue to expect domestic demand to remain the key driver of euro area growth. annual real gdp is projected to increase by 2. 2 % in 2017, 1. 8 % in 2018 and 1. 7 % in 2019. the risks to the growth outlook are broadly balanced. according to the latest imf weo projections, euro area real gdp is expected to grow by 2. 1 % in 2017 before moderating to 1. 9 % in 2018 and 1. 7 % in 2019, which is in line with the ecb projections. there are reasons to believe that the strengthening of economic activity, which so far has been significantly supported by accommodative monetary policy, will progressively be supported by more structural factors. euro area governments have undertaken substantial policy actions and reforms to redress pre - crisis related macroeconomic imbalances and increase economic resilience. 3 for instance, euro area countries which had previously experienced large current account deficits are now in surplus. moreover, both ecb staff and imf estimates indicate that the largest driver of this adjustment is non - cyclical in nature, which implies a higher likelihood of sustainability as the recovery continues. additionally, business cycle synchronisation across euro area countries has increased in recent years