ewald nowotny : catching - up strategies after the crisis opening remarks by mr ewald nowotny, governor of the central bank of the republic of austria, at the conference on european economic integration ( ceei ) 2010, vienna, 15 november 2010. * * * ladies and gentlemen! it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to our annual conference on european economic integration. the oesterreichische nationalbank ( oenb ) has been hosting this event for many years, offering a forum for lively debates between distinguished panelists from national and international institutions, politics, banking and academia. i am glad that such a sizeable number of participants and speakers show an interest in this year ’ s conference theme. implications of the financial crisis for cesee countries as you all know, the last two years have been characterized by the global financial crisis. in its early stage, the crisis had been confined to advanced economies. local and foreign banks in central, eastern and southeastern european ( cesee ) economies held only a negligible amount of so - called toxic assets. nevertheless, excessive risk - taking put the global financial system under serious stress, which had an adverse impact on the world economy. the cesee economies were particularly affected by output declines. these were also caused by accumulated vulnerabilities in the region, especially the credit boom ( backe and wojcik, 2008, fidrmuc and hainz, 2010 ) and foreign currency lending ( dvorsky et al., 2010 ). the output loss, with average gdp decline amounting to – 3 % in new eu member states and to – 6 % in all cesee countries in 2009 ( imf, 2010 ), was deeper than we expected. in turn, we can see slight improvements in this region this year. therefore, as reflected in its title, this year ’ s conference is forward looking, dealing with catching - up strategies after the crisis. the beginning of 2010 actually featured developments which were better than expected and fueled the hope that the crisis was already passing away. nearly all cesee countries ( with the exception of bulgaria and romania ) are expected to grow during this year ( schreiner et al., 2010 ). however, the growth is fueled mainly by restocking and external demand. moreover, the forecasts for 2011 and 2012 remain modest. the growth prospects are still fragile and there are significant downsize risks. the growth path will remain below the precrisi

keynote address by ms caroline abel governor of the central bank of seychelles at the launch of the financial markets index 12 april 2018 venue : eden bleu hotel distinguished guests, ladies and gentleman, good afternoon. it is an honour and indeed, a great pleasure for me to be afforded the opportunity to address this forum, which is launching the barclays africa group financial markets index 2017. the development of financial markets is of the utmost importance for the development of the economy. i am not the first to make this statement, nor will i be the last. it is a fact that cannot be over - emphasised, as a stable and well developed financial market is a key part of the foundation for a healthy economy. the index that is being launched today, provides us with a good analysis of the state of affairs of the financial markets in africa. most importantly for seychelles, it provides us with a marker of where we are and the areas which we need to focus on in order to increase the level and efficiency of our financial market. out of the 17 african countries that feature in this index, seychelles has scored 22 out of a possible 100 across the pillars that were assessed, with an overall ranking of 16. the question we need to ask ourselves is this : how can we get the seychelles economy to mature and strive for continued improvement in our financial market? the indication of the way forward is clear. as per the analysis, we need to improve on the depth and breadth of our financial market, increase our access to foreign exchange and bring our regulatory environment on par with international norms. however, the challenge is to get on that path and stay the course. small economies like ours do not necessarily have big opportunities for trade in financial assets and what little opportunities we have, there is a lack of diversity of assets that are traded. nevertheless, our placement on the index is one that should spur us to move forward. with the recent developments in our financial sector, combined with our efforts in improving transparency and developing tighter and sounder regulations, i firmly believe that there is much hope for the development of the financial market in seychelles, which will allow us to contribute towards the greater development of not just our own economy, but also the economy of the african continent. one area that we are already working on is the development of the foreign exchange market. i anticipate that the 2 - day workshop currently underway on foreign exchange trading, being facilitated by barclays bank seychelles with the participation of the local banks and the central bank