own quotas. it was a tough struggle, which should not surprise anyone – after all, global influence was at stake. we are also noticing something similar at present. and not only in the debate on imf governance. another major topic during your tenure at the imf was the euro area sovereign debt crisis. during the acute part of the crisis, the aim was to avert the worst. this is where the imf made an important contribution. and you brought to the table your sizeable economic expertise and your particular skill in in navigating talks with discretion. you injected the bundesbank's views and were an effective proponent of stability. as an advocate for stability and a seasoned economist, you were also held in high regard and were in high demand here in saxony and thuringia. you were president of the bundesbank's regional office and represented the bundesbank in the region for eight years. one of your main concerns was to impart knowledge of central bank issues, which are often not exactly simple, and thus to convey an understanding of current developments. you considered the " forum bundesbank " series and the banking evenings to be formats that lent themselves particularly well to exchanging ideas with the general public and experts from the business and financial world. a total of 90 of these events took place during your tenure, with presentations by our skilled bundesbank staff in leipzig, dresden, erfurt and chemnitz. you chaired the debates in an expert manner and to the benefit of all. and, from time to time, you yourself were the knowledgeable speaker. these offerings were, and are, very popular and well attended. 2 / 7 bis - central bankers'speeches the topic of the " digital euro " has encountered particularly keen interest. i am personally pleased about that. this is because the " digital euro " project will be the central strategic project of the bundesbank and the eurosystem in the coming years. the digital euro would deliver a host of benefits to the public. let me just list three of them here. it would be a european digital means of payment that could be used throughout the euro area. it would provide payers with greater privacy protection than we have seen with other digital means of payment thus far – a point which is all the more important given that the protection of privacy is a key concern voiced by people in surveys on the digital euro. and it would make digital payments in the euro area independent of foreign payment service providers

. there's no need to explain why that's a good thing as far as firm entries are concerned. after all, start - ups are an important building block for economic growth : they nurture fresh ideas and bring them to market maturity. you can get a particularly good sense of this here in leipzig, with its start - up scene. 5 at the same time, innovative newcomers crowd less - profitable firms out of the market. but that has its upsides, too. you see, the people who worked at those firms switch to enterprises with a brighter future. and capital, too, can also flow into more - profitable firms. this is a process that austrian economist joseph schumpeter called " creative destruction ". it is a process that unleashes productivity growth, boosts prosperity, and even leads to greater economic security in the long term. in germany, market entries and exits in 2023 were down by almost one - third – specifically, 30 % – compared with 2004. this sharp decline partly explains why productivity growth is weak and receding in germany. there is another point that backs up this view. these years did not only see a drop in the number of market entries and exits – they also saw a divergence of productivity levels between firms within a given market. in other words, firms trailed ever further behind sector leaders in terms of their productivity. from an economic perspective, this suggests that " declining allocation efficiency " was at play – that is to say, the allocation of production factors trailed increasingly behind levels that would have been needed to achieve optimum productivity. yet the reallocation of labour and capital away from inefficient firms to more efficient ones ranks as a key driver of productivity growth in the economy at large. if we now explore what is behind the decline in market entries, the general ups and downs of economic activity are one factor. firms tend to be established in upturns, while more are closed during downturns. in addition, rising uncertainty can dampen the firm entry rate on a lasting basis. indeed, the market entry rate in germany and the euro area has been conspicuously weak ever since the financial, economic and subsequent sovereign debt crisis. besides these cyclical factors, though, there are also structural constraints. in particular, demographic ageing acts as a drag on business dynamism. a study on the federal state of saxony as a start - up location, for example, 5 / 7 bis - central bankers