the results of their decision is that our organisations have been facilitating the inspire2live conferences for twelve years now – with a two - year interruption due to covida second parallel between my world and yours, dear guests, is also quite obvious. i'm looking at an international company of highly trained professionals, who cooperate 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches across several borders to serve a societal goal. like your work, our work also has a societal goal and requires international cooperation. we share insights, raise questions and engage in debate with our colleagues from the eurozone, and on a wider scale with those from the worldbank, the imf and many other international organisations. and like you, we prefer to debate on the basis of evidence. scientific evidence. just like cancer research is the most fruitful when it can profit from cooperation of many researchers like you, from all over the world, just so our mission of stable financial institutions and sustainable welfare profits from international scientific cooperation. these parallels in your and our work, make me feel slightly less overwhelmed, standing in this stately hall filled with so many eminent academics. a third parallel is related to the substance of our work, of your work and mine. this is the parallel i would like to turn into the main subject of this opening speech. your subject of study - the treatment and prevention of cancer - has an economic value in addition to its intrinsic value. a healthy economy benefits from a healthy population. the past two years we have seen that the reverse is also true : a population suffering from a pandemic will suffer from economic consequences - not that i expect that you are eager to listen to a professor of economics telling you that your work is essential'because of its economic value'- your work is intrinsically essential of course. and here i would again like to thank you all, for your collective and unbridled commitment to global healthcare. with this speech i would like to try to substantiate this'thank you '. 3. why and how does a central bank take health into account? our core task as a central bank is – as i mentioned earlier - to contribute to financial stability and sustainable welfare for all dutch citizens. although there obviously is a relationship between economy and health, we must admit we cannot quantify or clearly specify this. but we did learn some things from the pandemic. central banks and other institutions have found a way of dealing with uncertainties by developing alternative economic scenarios.

##ntial supervision. the exchange of information is not, therefore, a one - way street ; it results in a beneficial symbiosis of macroprudential and microprudential knowhow, which will strengthen germany as a financial centre. regarding the low - interest rate setting : how will you collaborate specifically on this issue? hufeld : this issue demonstrates the importance of our cooperation. we can draw a reliable and comprehensive picture of the situation only if we take due account of both the relevant macroeconomic and macroprudential factors and the individual insurers ’ particular circumstances. and the ongoing period of low interest rates naturally also plays an important role in the financial stability committee. we must, therefore, grapple with a difficult subject at the very outset of our collaboration. however, i am sure that will only strengthen our cooperation. dombret : the current low - interest rate setting is making itself felt in all financial sectors. credit institutions and insurers must take this into account in their business plans. as the bundesbank has, for some years, been observing the effects of the low - interest rate environment on the financial system and, not least of course, on life insurers, i expect our cooperation with bafin to prove fruitful in this field, too. another key issue from both a macroprudential and a microprudential perspective is that of systemic relevance. the financial stability board ( fsb ) recently ranked nine insurers as global systemically important insurers ( see link below ). how important do you think this step is? dombret : the publication of this first list of global systemically important insurers marks another step on the path towards a more stable financial system. banks are not the only entities that can be systemically important – market infrastructures and insurers can be, too. the main factors determining an insurer ’ s systemic importance are, first and foremost, its interconnectedness within the financial system and the size of its non - traditional and non - insurance business. i therefore fully support the fsb ’ s recent move. however, it is clear that we still have a considerable way to go. we must now specify and finalise the regulatory consequences associated with this ranking. that will not be easy. just think of the challenge of creating, for the first time, a harmonised international basis for imposing potential capital surcharges in the insurance sector. hufeld : it is good