richard byles : jamaica's recent inflation performance and outlook monetary policy statement by mr richard byles, governor of the bank of jamaica, to the standing finance committee of parliament, kingston, 14 december 2022. * * * thank you for the opportunity to have bank of the jamaica report to this honourable house on its recent stewardship of monetary policy. i also take this opportunity to wish all the members of this honourable house and your families a safe and happy christmas when it comes. by way of context for my remarks, the ongoing conflict between russia and ukraine has amplified substantial increases in international commodity prices. notwithstanding this adverse development, the domestic economy continues to show signs of strong recovery, our foreign reserves are robust and employment is at pre - covid levels. the shock has however contributed to significant increases in both inflation and inflation expectations here in jamaica and across the world, which makes inflation a source of ongoing concern for bank of jamaica. headline inflation at october 2022, as reported by statin, was 9. 9 %, which continued to trend above the upper limit of the bank's inflation target of 4 to 6 %. this outturn was also higher than the inflation rate of 7. 3 % at december 2021 but has been declining slowly since april 2022 when it was 11. 8 %. while some of the key drivers of headline inflation, such as grains and shipping prices, continue to trend downwards on the world markets, we are not yet seeing the full pass - through to domestic food prices. in addition, core inflation, which excludes from the cpi ( consumer price index ), the impact of fuel and food prices, is high at 9 % when compared with 8. 4 per cent at december 2021. monetary tightening among jamaica's main trading partners has also continued at a rapid pace, which carries the risk of increased capital outflows from jamaica and a faster pace of exchange rate depreciation, if domestic monetary policy is not correctly aligned. therefore, since october last year, bank of jamaica has used a three - pronged approach to address the problem of high inflation in jamaica. these included : 1. gradual increases in the bank's policy interest rate by 650 basis points since october 2021 ; 2. the provision of us dollar liquidity support to the foreign exchange market to foster stability in the foreign exchange market and, 3. ensuring the maintenance of tight jamaica dollar liquidity conditions in the money market. this package of mutually reinforcing policy measures is meant to

jean - claude trichet : opening speech at the conference on “ the safety and efficiency of post - trading arrangements in europe ” opening speech by mr jean - claude trichet, president of the european central bank, at the joint ecb / european commission conference “ the safety and efficiency of post - trading arrangements in europe ”, frankfurt am main, 21 - 22 april 2008. * * * ladies and gentlemen, i am delighted to welcoming you to frankfurt and open the next one and a half day ’ s conference on “ the safety and efficiency of post - trading arrangements in europe ”. this conference is organised jointly by the ecb and the european commission as part of our continuous concerted initiatives to foster european financial integration in general and in the post - trading environment in particular. this conference is distinctive in at least two ways. firstly, it brings the main european decision makers and opinion - formers from various segments of the post - trading activity together, to foster the european debate in an open and visionary way. secondly, as the conference is organised into distinguish sessions covering all post - trading activity, we have a unique opportunity to draw up concrete proposals and recommendations from each field of expertise. i look forward to learn from the discussions of today ’ s conference on how to enhance the safety and efficiency of the european post - trading market. i would like to emphasise the importance of the post - trading activities in europe. put into global perspective, europe is comparable to the united states in terms of its economic size, but whereas firms in the united states operate in a single, large domestic post - trading environment, in europe, firms have to operate across many smaller, national markets and bear the higher complexity and costs of connecting to all of these markets either directly or via manifold intermediaries, implying additional unnecessary costs. as a result of this lack of integration, europe lags behind the united states. for example, the cost gap 1 is particularly large for cross - border transactions, with estimates suggesting that the difference can be a multiple of two or even more. this gap for europe must be closed and clearly demonstrates that concrete actions are needed to make europe significantly more competitive and a more attractive place for issuers and investors. this objective is in line with the lisbon agenda, which claims that not only must europe do better, it can do better. we aim to make europe a highly efficient and secure place to issue and trade securities. however, europe lacks – for instance – a common post - trade “ auto