$ 9. 6 billion over the first eleven months of 2013. having reached the legal limit on the issue of treasury securities for the purposes of open market operations, the central bank sought and received approval from the ministry of finance and the economy to facilitate the issue of two treasury bonds, whose proceeds were sterilized. the first treasury bond was issued in may 2013 at a face value of $ 1 billion and the second in august 2013 with a face value of $ 559. 3 million taken from a $ 1 billion offering. the bank also rolled over for one year, the commercial banks ’ fixed deposits held at the central bank which matured to date in 2013. in addition, the bank indirectly removed just over $ 8. 0 billion from the system via the sales of foreign exchange to the banking system in the first eleven months of 2013. in early december 2013, the central bank ’ s liquidity management framework was enhanced with an increase in the borrowing limits under the treasury bills act ( to $ 30 billion from $ 15 billion ) and the treasury notes act ( to $ 15 billion from $ 5 billion ). i wish to emphasize that these treasury securities are purely for the purposes of monetary policy, not fiscal policy. the proceeds of the securities are locked away in a blocked account at the central bank and only re - enter the financial system upon maturity of the existing securities. these funds are not used to finance the government ’ s budget or any government program. i also wish to emphasize that this practice is not new. in january 2003, parliament approved an increase in limits for both treasury bills ( from $ 2 billion to $ 5 billion ) and treasury notes ( from $ 1 billion to $ 3 billion ). in august 2006, parliament again approved an increase in limits for both treasury bills ( from $ 5 billion to $ 15 billion ) and treasury notes ( from $ 3 billion to $ 5 billion ). by 2008, or within two years, these new limits were already reached and the central bank had to resort to rolling over existing maturities to mop up the excess liquidity. short - term prospects i would now like to turn to the outlook for 2014. it is fairly evident that uncertainty continues to weigh heavily on external conditions. perhaps the most immediate downside risks to emerging markets, including trinidad and tobago, relates to shifting expectations about the future path of us monetary policy. with firmly anchored inflation expectations, the central bank is giving more weight to an accommodative monetary stance until a firm

time ; and ( ii ) that they could be very costly – they always lead to a loss of output and private savings, they carry heavy fiscal costs associated with public bailouts, and they could lead to a systemic loss of confidence in the financial system which is difficult to rebuild. examples covering both advanced and developing countries suggest that while financial crises differ as to their details, they always reflect the confluence of some underlying economic vulnerabilities and a specific crisis trigger. the underlying vulnerabilities could be any of a number of things : poor risk management by financial institutions ; mis - matches between assets and liabilities ; excessive leveraging of financial institutions, poor liquidity management or inadequate capital. the trigger could be anything, depending on the country – terms of trade shocks, the collapse of an asset ( housing ) bubble, or macro - economic setbacks resulting from exogenous shocks. sometimes the specific event that can trigger a crisis is unpredictable and crises themselves are also unpredictable. in fact, many triggers are exogenous and we can do very little about them. in these circumstances, our focus therefore should be on identifying and addressing underlying vulnerabilities early so as to reduce their incidence. recognition of this reality – the need to detect emerging problems has led to the development of early warning signals and more recently to the preparation of financial stability reports by central banks. some international financial institutions, have compiled a set of macro - prudential indicators to serve as barometers of the health and stability of the financial system and to provide early warning of potential problems. our monitoring system in the caribbean has been rudimentary at best, on non - existent and fragmented, in many of our regional jurisdictions. this is unfortunate since any robust analysis would have shown up a whole range of vulnerabilities in all of the financial institutions of the clf conglomerate. some of the more glaring vulnerabilities were : ( i ) a mis - match between assets and liabilities, with mostly short term liabilities paying above market interest rates, matched by long term assets ; ( ii ) excessive leveraging of balance sheet assets, reducing their net value ; ( iii ) a preponderance of inter - group transactions ; ( iv ) the total absence of a risk management framework ; and ( v ) inadequate capital. of course, these vulnerabilities were compounded by : ( i ) a weak legislative and regulatory infrastructure, in which clf, the parent holding company was not subject to