their strategic focus and begin implementing strategies to advance malaysia's proposition as international gateway for islamic finance. the second important anchor in delivering tangible impact is doubling - down on valuebased finance implementation. it has been six years since the introduction of the vbi 4 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches strategy framework in 2017, and i acknowledge that it is not an easy feat to progress from " emerging " phase, where finance solutions gradually demonstrate principles of vbi, to the " established " implementation phase, where the whole institutional behaviour and culture is fully aligned towards the fundamental values of shariah in delivering sustainable impact. nonetheless, the industry must remain steadfast and strive forward to effect positive and lasting change. a step - change in the " tone at the top " is of utmost importance to create a domino - effect of positive actions that permeate throughout the institution – from corporate value intent to business strategies and operations, business conduct, performance measurement and also, impact reporting. this holistic change must be driven from the boardrooms with cascading effect to the frontlines for positive impact to be felt by customers and wider stakeholders. i wish to acknowledge the commitment shown by aibim and the malaysian takaful association in leading vbi initiatives thus far. the industry continues to further expand the application of value - based intermediation financing and investment impact assessment framework through the upcoming issuance of the 3rd cohort of sectoral guides this year, focusing on agriculture, mining & quarrying, road transportation and waste management sectors. on the takaful front, i hope the vbit roadmap issued last year will be useful in guiding takaful operators to implement changes to business and operating strategies, introduce more value - based solutions and strengthen capacity to deliver positive impact to people, planet and environment. i note that both associations are also making strides to develop better impact measurement frameworks – such as the maqasid scorecard and vbi impact report evaluation. i look forward to the upcoming report by vbi community of practitioners on improvements to its vbi impact measurements. these initiatives are critical to address the real risk of " impact - washing " that can affect the integrity and effectiveness of vbi implementation. with vbi principles being universal, our hope is that going forward, we will see wider adoption of value - based finance beyond the islamic finance community of institutions, so as to further promote a more inclusive and sustainable financial ecosystem in malaysia. adopting sustainability principles in financial business

occasions, the policy mix has served us pretty well, for instance in 2009 in response to financial crises, or in 2020 in response to the covid crisis. in both cases, monetary and fiscal policies were clearly counter - cyclical in the euro area. from 2014 to 2019, a few cracks appeared in the simple, maastrichtian distribution of tasks, as the eurosystem was struggling to lift the inflation rate while the aggregate 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches fiscal stance in the euro area was flat. some doubts appeared as to the ability of monetary policy alone to reach the 2 % inflation target. at the zero lower bound, monetary policy had become relatively less powerful whereas fiscal policy benefited from the lack of crowding out effect, hence becoming more effective. in his speech at jackson hole, in august 2014, mario draghi explicitly called for a coordination of monetary and fiscal policy, declaring that " it would be helpful for the overall stance of policy if fiscal policy could play a greater role alongside monetary policy ". ii but the real shock to the policy mix came with the energy crisis, in 2022. following its mandate of stable inflation, the eurosystem raised its interest rates ten times between july 2022 and september 2023, with a total increase of 450 basis points. simultaneously, though, the post - covid adjustment of fiscal balances was slowed down by the introduction of costly measures to protect households and firms from a sudden and temporary rise in energy prices. some of these fiscal measures had the same goal as monetary policy, i. e. stabilising inflation. according to imf estimates, iii these measures reduced inflation by 2. 2 percentage points in 2022, at a budgetary cost of 3. 3 % of gdp in the euro area. in a new keynesian model, a standard fiscal stimulus of the same magnitude would rather lead to an increase in inflation of between 0. 3 and 1 percentage point. smoothing price increases may have helped the real economy to adjust and limited the price - wage spiral. the fact that the shock on energy prices was only temporary has validated this strategy ex post, although at a relatively high fiscal cost. this episode reminds us of the existence of cost - push shocks and the need for governments to monitor not only the output gap but also the inflation rate at the country level. jean - claude trichet was famous for brandishing graphs showing cumulated divergence of unit labour costs across the euro area. such divergence was