of their implications, they share two important lessons : 1. the uncertainty surrounding the drivers of inflation has increased over the years. 2. inflation is subject to incomplete control by central bankers. 3 https : / / fd. nl / economie ‐ politiek / 1326407 / economen ‐ zijn ‐ niet ‐ de ‐ meest ‐ moedige ‐ mensen see hindrayanto, i., samarina, a. and i. stanga ( 2019 ). is the phillips curve still alive? evidence from the euro area. economics letters 174, 149 ‐ 152. 3 see also “ the quest for policy scope : implications for monetary policy strategies ”, speech at the fourth annual high ‐ level conference racing for economic leadership : eu ‐ us perspectives, new york, 16 october 2019. the second challenge relates to the reduced room for maneuver central bankers have. when trying to address persistently low inflation, at some point monetary policy will hit the effective lower bound on short - term interest rates. beyond that point, increasing side - effects start to outweigh the marginal returns of taking the policy rate deeper into negative territory. this lower bound is more relevant today than it was in the past. interest rates, for a variety of reasons mostly outside the realm of monetary policy, have declined substantially since the 1980s. 4 this implies that central banks have less conventional policy space when confronted with a recession. in order to provide additional accommodation with policy rates at the effective lower bound, central banks have developed and employed unconventional monetary policy instruments. and with unconventional monetary policy instruments comes the third challenge. despite the experiences gained in recent years, our understanding of unconventional tools like forward guidance, asset purchases and long - term credit operations is still less developed than our understanding of conventional tools. hence, the impact of these instruments remains subject to considerably more uncertainty than that of conventional instruments. moreover, the effect of unconventional instruments on financial conditions, and ultimately inflation, depends very much on the specific conditions under which they are implemented. and, therefore, can also differ over time. more specifically, the impact of balance sheet instruments crucially depends on the existence of financial frictions. because these frictions are what shape the impact of such central bank interventions on financial conditions. a central bank can for instance effectively suppress risk premia by increasing its role as an intermediary. 5 there is, however, an important catch : relevant frictions may not only reflect temporary market disfun

billion, provides the brics countries with access to additional liquidity in the event of a crisis. fortunately, none of the brics countries have had a need to call upon the cra to date. a number of new initiatives are being discussed under the brics agenda, with a view to furthering the work already undertaken and cementing the progress that has been made to date. more details will emerge at the brics summit later this year. next year, south africa will take over the presidency of the brics grouping. we will continue the work aimed at further strengthening the cooperation and collaboration among the brics members. regional economic integration the sarb is an active participant in various forums on the continent, which include the southern african development community ( sadc ), the association of african central banks ( aacb ), and the common monetary area ( cma ). the main aim of sadc is to promote economic and financial integration in the interest of sustainable economic development in the region. in this regard, the sadc heads of state adopted the revised regional integrated strategic development plan in 2016. the sarb ’ s regional initiatives are mainly conducted through the committee of central bank governors ( ccbg ), which is chaired by the sarb. the main objective of the ccbg is to undertake initiatives in support of the sadc finance and investment protocol. a notable achievement of the ccbg in recent years relates to the implementation of the sadc integrated regional electronic settlement system, known as siress. through siress, 14 regional central banks and 76 commercial banks are electronically linked to effect cross - border payments and settlements in real time. since its inception in 2015, more than 700 000 transactions to the value of almost r3. 1 trillion have been cleared on the siress platform. page 5 of 7 the sarb is also a member of the aacb. the main objectives of the aacb include the promotion of cooperation in the monetary, banking and financial spheres in the interest of maintaining price and financial stability. the work of the aacb is in line with the broad framework of agenda 2063 adopted by the african union in 2013. the sarb is currently the vice chair of the aacb and will host the ordinary annual meeting as well as the governors symposium on 12 - 16 august 2017 here in pretoria. at this annual meeting, the sarb will assume the chairmanship of the aacb. during our tenure as chair, we will continue to enhance cooperation among african central