in order to raise the long - term growth potential of europe. and the lucid monitoring of the national competitive indicators, including unit labour costs. mr president of the parliament, mr president of the union, mr president of the commission, mr president of the eurogroup, europe can count on the ecb and on the eurosystem to implement in this century the historic task which was assigned to us at the end of the last century. we will be faithful to the primary mandate given to us by the treaty. we know that our fellow citizens are asking us to deliver price stability. we know also that price stability is a prerequisite for financial stability, a very important objective at the current juncture. all the members of the governing council make their decisions taking into account the interests of the whole of the euro area, of 15 countries. we do not consider any particular country, but all 15 of them. sehr geehrte frau bundeskanzlerin, this year in aachen, upon receiving the charlemagne prize, you quoted konrad adenauer : “ gerade in aachen wird man die mahnung verstehen, dass europa uns heute schicksalsgemeinschaft ist. dieses schicksal zu gestalten ist uns ubergeben ”. “ in aachen, above all, people will understand the call : that europe, for us today, is a community with a common destiny. it's up to us to shape that destiny. ” “ justement ici a aix on comprend l ’ appel qui fait de l ’ europe aujourd ’ hui notre destin commun. il nous appartient de donner forme a ce destin. ” a “ common destiny ” : the words of the man with whom general de gaulle achieved reconciliation after so many conflicts. these words apply even more to the countries belonging to the euro area. in the ecb and in the eurosystem we are fully convinced that, with our fellow citizens, 320 million of them, we share a destiny in common – wir teilen dasselbe schicksal – nous partageons un destin en commun. i thank you for your attention.

advanced and integrated information and communications technology institution of higher learning and to concomitantly, create nigeria ’ s silicon valley ( ict cluster ). i was reliably informed that, the institute will provide an opportunity for nigerian and west african youths, to acquire the relevant skills and critical competencies required to participate in the new global information and communications technology - driven economy and provide the necessary human capital that would give them a competitive edge in the global market place. i am also aware that, waiict ’ s proposition is simply to identify the best and brightest young men and women with interests in technology, and train them into world - class programmers and software developers. in addition, the institute will equip students with the strategic and operational skills to manage projects and corporate enterprises to ensure that technology remains tied to market needs. the waiict initiative is also patterned along global ict developments, where software development and programming languages require basically similar skills. i am tempted to say that with such an initiative, the west african sub - region and indeed the entire continent of africa, can enjoy the benefits of an ict revolution because of the availability of english - speaking, high quality and low cost labor. the need for software engineers in germany has led the foreign minister to visit india on several occasions to lure indian engineers into germany. it has even prompted a revision of the german immigration laws to accommodate that economic need. another example is the case of acs, a ghanaian telecomputing, data processing and transcription service company, which is focused on serving high end u. s. clients and providing hardware and software training all over the continent. these examples suggest to me that nigerian companies can also compete in the offshore it space. permit me, ladies and gentlemen to stress that, overall, the application of icts to facilitate the provision of public services, achieve productivity gains, improve the quality of life of our citizenry, and enhance access to information and facilitate knowledge - based sharing are all not only desirous but very necessary, for nigeria to properly position itself and assume the much desired leadership role in our increasingly globalizing, information and communications technology driven world economic system. it is instructive to note that, since these achievements represent feats that nigerian companies are yet to emulate, taking advantage of such opportunities requires the systematic creation of a competitive knowledge economy. this is what i think waiict is going to provide. it is a need that they have correctly identified to provide and i am calling on all