experience financial difficulties because of illness or loss of income. however, policy actions in the years since the last financial crisis have contributed to the financial system being in a much better place to support households and businesses now. resilience has been built incrementally through the mortgage measures, and has been locked - in with the activation of the countercyclical capital buffer ( ccyb ) and other capital buffers. with the release of the ccyb that we announced in mid - march, and the availability of the other capital buffers such as the o - sii buffer to absorb losses, banks are in a better position to lend sustainably to the real economy. to sum up, the covid - 19 crisis is not over and the scale of its economic impact is uncertain. the initial shock is behind us but the macro - financial outlook will depend on a number of factors. fundamentally, it boils down to the uncertainty over how the pandemic itself will play out : the success of the public health measures and medical advances to tackle it, the capacity and actions of the financial system, households and businesses to absorb and not amplify the shock, and the success of economic and financial stability policies to mitigate its impact. we are, as i said, at the end of the beginning. finally, when we published our previous fsr in early december last year, i spoke about our key areas of focus going into 2020 from a macro - prudential perspective, and how we were developing our approach to building additional resilience, covering banks, borrowers and nonbanks. that agenda remains but events over the last few months have led us to focus our work programme to devote more resources to ensuring that the resilience built in recent years can be drawn upon, as appropriate, to support the economy through the crisis. it is in the wider interests of the irish financial system that it continues to provide credit to households and businesses in a sustainable way, minimising the extent of the downturn and maximising its contribution to the recovery. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches

emergence of stronger companies, and provide the basis for sustained growth. political and social preconditions all these policies - accepting globalisation, fostering asean economic cooperation, restructuring the corporate sector, and reforming the banking sector - are essential for countries to recover. but to be in a position to implement and make such economic policies work, countries must first create the right political and social preconditions. investors, both domestic and foreign, will adopt a wait - and - see attitude until they know how political uncertainties are resolved. their views are coloured by past experiences, and they will look for evidence of a clear break with the past. a stable political climate is essential to foster confidence, investment and growth. governments must put their houses in order, bring corruption under control, and install men and women of integrity and competence to key positions within the top leadership. as mr anand panyarachun, former prime minister of thailand and now president of the thai chapter of transparency international, said : “ the very basis of a non - corrupt culture is integrity. … it is a state of mind, an attitude. you can be corrupt without taking any money. ” 2 the values, norms and business environment of asean countries cannot be transformed overnight. it is more than enacting new laws and regulations. it means changing deeply established social relationships and norms which vary from country to country. businessmen, civil servants and politicians used to operating in one way for years will not suddenly abandon or condemn old practices as soon as a new law is passed. mom rachawong chatu mongol sonakul put it aptly : “ what we are doing is a very long process. we ’ re not talking of months or years. we are talking in, maybe, decades or generations. we ’ re not changing our way of working. we actually try to change our way of life. ” 3 these are matters that each country has to resolve for itself, in its own way. external inputs can be helpful, but may also be counter - productive. for example in indonesia the imf sought drastic economic reforms, which inevitably had far - reaching political implications. the result was a complete collapse of the suharto government. but creating a new order to follow this is now a challenge which only indonesia ’ s people and leaders can resolve. foreign advice and assistance now play only a secondary role. asiaweek, 3 november 2000. keynote address during a seminar organised jointly by the bank of thailand and the world bank