economy will be hugely beneficial. it will allow better financial access to our low - income community in the rural and isolated areas as well as to improve and speed up our payments system. in launching an automatic teller machine ( or atm ) for one of the commercial banks yesterday, i acknowledged the benefits of having and maintaining bank branches out in the rural areas, as these will help increase access to financial services. it is expected that some of these rural branches will not be financially viable in the short term. but, in the longer term, as more people become more financial literate, business activities will increase and thus help generate more revenue for these bank branches. financial literacy and financial inclusion also has great potential to address several issues specific to the economy of samoa, like reducing the current relatively high costs of remittances into the country. today ’ s exchange of information on mobile money and mobile banking kick starts the central bank ’ s involvement in financial inclusion. to this end, i would like to acknowledge, with appreciation, the kind assistance of the pacific financial inclusion program of the uncdf and ausaid in assisting the bank in its new role by co - hosting and co - sponsoring today ’ s workshop and information exchange. ladies and gentlemen, i encourage you to share generously your knowledge and experiences in your specific fields of expertise so that we are able to put together an effective and secure mobile money and banking network for samoa. because you may not have sufficient time to fully cover the important topics that you are going to discuss, i hope that at the end of the formal part of the workshop, we can all relax and continue the dialogue over some refreshments. with these brief remarks, i would now like to welcome to the podium our information exchange co - ordinators, mr. tillman bruett and mr. michael mccaffrey, of the uncdf pacific financial inclusion program. thank you for your attention. soifua.

make an effort to achieve price stability in the medium to long term based not on shortterm fluctuations in prices but on forecasts for the economy and prices from a sufficiently long - term perspective. there has been criticism that dialogue between the bank and financial markets has not been smooth. central banks need to carefully explain to market participants and the public the basic thinking behind their monetary policy conduct and their assessment of the economic and financial situation. through careful explanation of these two points, not only will the transparency of monetary policy conduct be ensured but the effectiveness of the policy will be enhanced. 4 market participants form expectations regarding future interest rates by adjusting their views on the economy and prices on the basis of information provided by the central bank. meanwhile, central banks deduce market participants'views on the economy and prices from movements in market it is important for the " understanding of medium - to long - term price stability " to become common knowledge among market participants as well as among policy board members, and be a focal point in terms of communication policy, as this will in turn facilitate consensus - building among the public. for more details, see k. iwata and m. fukao, " keizai seido no kokusaiteki chosei ( international adjustment of economic systems ), " nihon keizai shimbun, inc., 1995. on the subject of the bank of england's policy regarding communication between itself and financial markets, governor mervyn king, in his speech, said that central banks should provide markets with two key pieces of information - - the objective of monetary policy and the central banks'analysis of and outlook for the economy - - to facilitate the formation of market expectations regarding the path of future policy rates. however, he disapproved of providing direct hints about the path of interest rates, since the results of specific policy decisions regarding interest rates remain unknown until after voting within the policy committee has taken place. for details, please refer to the speech by mervyn king, governor of the bank of england, at the lord mayor's banquet for bankers and merchants of the city of london at the mansion house on june 21 2006. interest rates or shifts in the yield curve. dialogue with markets thus constitutes a two - way exchange of information. the key point here is that central banks provide information concerning the basic direction of monetary policy but do not specify the timing of an actual policy change. at an mpm, the policy board members discuss the current and future