christine lagarde : ecb press conference - introductory statement introductory statement by ms christine lagarde, president of the european central bank, and mr luis de guindos, vice - president of the european central bank, frankfurt am main, 16 december 2021. * * * good afternoon, the vice - president and i welcome you to our press conference. the euro area economy continues to recover and the labour market is improving, helped by ample policy support. growth is moderating but we expect activity to pick up again strongly in the course of next year. the latest pandemic wave and the omicron variant have prompted some countries to re - introduce tighter restrictions. energy prices have gone up significantly. and in some industries, there are shortages of materials, equipment and labour. these factors are restraining economic activity and are a headwind for the near - term outlook. however, although the public health crisis is still ongoing, many people have been vaccinated and booster campaigns have accelerated. overall, society has become better at coping with the pandemic waves and resulting constraints. this has lessened the pandemic impact on the economy. inflation has risen sharply owing to the surge in energy prices, and also because demand is outpacing constrained supply in some sectors. inflation is expected to remain elevated in the near term, but should ease in the course of next year. the inflation outlook has been revised up, but inflation is still projected to settle below our two per cent target over the projection horizon. we judge that the progress on economic recovery and towards our medium - term inflation target permits a step - by - step reduction in the pace of our asset purchases over the coming quarters. but monetary accommodation is still needed for inflation to stabilise at our two per cent inflation target over the medium term. in view of the current uncertainty, we need to maintain flexibility and optionality in the conduct of monetary policy. with this is mind, the governing council took the following decisions : first, in the first quarter of 2022, we expect to conduct net asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase programme ( pepp ) at a lower pace than in the previous quarter. we will discontinue net asset purchases under the pepp at the end of march 2022. second, the governing council decided to extend the reinvestment horizon for the pepp. it now intends to reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the pepp until at least the end

durmus yılmaz : green shoots – how vigorous and how sustainable? speech by mr durmus yilmaz, governor of the central bank of the republic of turkey, at the conference on “ green shoots – how vigorous and how sustainable ”, imf - world bank annual meetings 2009, istanbul, 5 october 2009. * * * ladies and gentlemen, first of all, i would like to welcome everyone to istanbul. it is a great pleasure for me to be here addressing such a distinguished audience as we convene for the 2009 annual meetings. “ green shoots ” has been a popular metaphor to describe the recovery process. and today, i will try to elaborate on our path to build a career as a prudent gardener. i want to begin with discussing the path that brought us to this crisis. then, i will talk about the recovery signals in both global and turkish economy. i will conclude my speech with my thoughts on the solidity and sustainability of these signals. as is well known, financial strains originated in advanced economies abruptly mutated into a full - blown crisis and had a devastating effect on international capital markets. as the crisis intensified, measures of perceived risk escalated to record levels and major financial institutions suffered massive losses. at the same time, liquidity shortages, tighter credit conditions, and heightened uncertainty were associated with a sharp decline in both private consumption and investment spending. in fact, many economies fell into recession or have seen their growth rates decline sharply. as a consequence, global trade contracted, financial flows dried up, and unemployment rates soared. the global financial system is still under stress ; but one can see some signs of recovery in the global financial markets and economic indicators around the world. unprecedented policy reactions to the crisis taken by governments and central banks worldwide have managed to stabilize the financial markets and reduced liquidity concerns. especially, thanks to ease of tension in the global financial markets, emerging market equities have boosted and spreads have narrowed. commodity prices have rebounded from their recent low levels while capacity utilization and industrial production have globally recovered modestly. as a consequence, international institutions like the imf and oecd announced that the global economy will recover sooner than expected and they are getting more and more optimistic regarding their projections. in the words of winston churchill who had seen the sunlight after the darkest days of the second world war : “ this may not be the end. it is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the