billion more than that registered in 2014. this level of reserves can cover 10. 3 months ’ worth of imports of goods and payment for services and income. these encouraging developments have helped elevate third - party assessments on the domestic economy ’ s progress and prospects. several indices of the country have moved up. these indices include those on transparency, governance and ease of doing business, among others. in september last year, fitch upgraded its credit outlook on the philippine economy to “ positive ” from “ stable. ” this is important because it raises the prospect that fitch would upgrade the country ’ s credit rating in the next 12 – 18 months. ladies and gentlemen, the facts and figures that i just discussed provide evidence to support the first headline, that is, that the philippines entered 2016 from a position of relative strength. my second headline : the philippines is seen to sustain resilience in 2016. resilience is a word that many use, but it is important to remember that this is a word that holds meaning only when it is taken in context. in other words, in a specific circumstance. clearly, resilience cannot be tested if one is sailing over calm seas. for us, 2015 was not at all calm. it was a challenging year. the markets and other policy makers were cautious. we were all waiting for the fed “ lift off ” ( or when the fed would begin to raise its target rate ). we weren ’ t sure where oil prices were headed. we didn't know how to fully interpret the actions by chinese authorities, including the devaluation of the renminbi ( rmb ). and yet, in the face of all these uncertainties, the country stood its ground in 2015. 2016 was off to a bumpy start. while, we foresee the same risk factors in 2016 as those in 2015, it may be more difficult to predict how these factors would play out in 2016. policy makers are being more sensitive to spill overs and spillbacks to their economies. and market sentiment continues to be “ shifty. ” let me quickly go through how we see each challenge evolving in 2016. let me begin with china. when the global financial crisis ( gfc ) started in 2007 / 2008, global growth remained afloat because the emerging markets, the largest of which is china, were growing. this time around, china ’ s growth prospects are not as clear - cut as then. there is now debate whether china could experience a hard landing.

specifically, i note a very timely and comprehensive analysis of liquidity issues was prepared in a special financial stability review by the bank of france in february. in new zealand, we have also been keenly aware of the liquidity risks that recent events have demonstrated. banks have had an important role intermediating capital account flows into new zealand ( and australia ), and have accepted a significant amount of short term capital flows in order to minimise funding costs. we want to look at whether the vulnerabilities that this can create have been adequately priced and managed – noting that some of the costs of a liquidity event are probably externalities that would ultimately be borne by other new zealand parties. breakdown of short term lending markets is one specific challenge we would expect to confront if the financial stability situation deteriorates markedly further in one or more of the major advanced economies. there will doubtless be other flow - on effects as well. like the transmission of subprime issues to monolines and seemingly unrelated markets, many of these flow - on effects could surprise us. however, the potential for a deterioration in financial stability to further intensify risk aversion seems significant. for countries like new zealand with substantial borrowing from abroad this could clearly have an impact on our cost of funds and / or our access to funds in some global financial markets.