for greater collaboration with others. in this regard, i would like to see greater collaboration between cartac and other like - minded regional institutions such as the university of the west indies, cemla and the ccmf. in closing, i wish to remind you all that this meeting is taking place the day before two successive national holidays, corpus christi and indian arrival day. the timing is therefore opportune for you to experience some of our country's religious and cultural heritage and to partake in our delicious indigenous cuisine. i thank you and wish you all a very productive meeting. bis central bankers ’ speeches

collapse of the insurance subsidiaries of the cl financial group is perhaps the most widely cited example of the systemic importance of these cross - border financial groups. cartac has already done some good work in assisting in the drafting of financial sector legislation by bringing a wider international perspective. the centre ’ s assistance to the central banks in producing a regional financial stability report is anticipated to be of great benefit in assisting the region to diagnose financial vulnerabilities and develop corrective strategies ex ante to forestall potential future crises. one aspect that is often unheralded is cartac ’ s work on macroeconomic statistics. indeed, many countries have severe institutional problems that inhibit the gathering, accurate processing and timely dissemination of data, creating a weak base for policy design. in a difficult and sometimes frustrating environment, cartac has been able to help in providing bis central bankers ’ speeches consultants and training local staff to improve statistics on consumer prices, the balance of payments and national accounts. trinidad and tobago considers itself a strong collaborator of the institution and wholeheartedly supports its work and vision. for our part, we have benefitted from technical assistance / consultancy support in the financial sector as well as fiscal and debt management. we continue to receive support to strengthen the price and balance of payments statistics and just last week we hosted a consultant who is assisting us to develop and implement a plan to rebase our quarterly gross domestic product estimates. our semi - annual bank stress testing exercises, which we have done over the past two and a half years, was developed with a cartac consultant, who earlier this year revisited our shores and worked with us on upgrading the test parameters and methodology. staff at the central bank and at government ministries gained valuable training on macroeconomic issues and policy design. this is a cartac contribution which we consider extremely important in helping to develop the capacity of our future policy makers. we also commend cartac for organizing the summer internship program – we have had the good fortune of having some excellent interns and we will continue to participate in this initiative. as with any technical assistance program, we recognize that sustainability must be a major objective. as we discuss the recent activities of the centre and the way forward during today ’ s proceedings, we should keep constantly in mind the need to develop programs in a way that would progressively transfer the knowledge and expertise to recipient countries. in this way cartac ’ s contribution would be all the more durable. moreover, we should utilize as far as possible the avenues