two key areas : improving public resource management and supporting the development and maintenance of a stable and transparent economic and regulatory environment so as to foster private sector activities. other institutions such as the oecd and the world bank are involved in corporate governance, with the latter formulating a set of principles such as ethics and transparency, as well as accountability. to sum up, i should emphasise that corporate governance at present is a matter of greatest concern to the business environment, just the same as we, those involved in formulating macroeconomics, are concerned more broadly with economic governance. bis central bankers ’ speeches i believe that emphasis now should be placed primarily on discipline, fiscal discipline in particular, but also on a shift in culture. i also like to add two words that i see essential when speaking about economic governance : stability and confidence. in my view, all efforts these days should be targeted to maintaining stability and restore confidence. thank you all! bis central bankers ’ speeches

to my area of concern. i do believe that approaching governance in a broader economic context could prove both relevant and useful. in this context, i cannot stop short of underlying how important consistent economic policies are for ensuring a sustainable development, and to repeat my belief that there is no substitute for consistent, sound and stability - oriented economic policies. therefore, i will share with you some of the lessons from my own experience. first, i will refer to the importance of having a good fiscal and monetary policy mix. if fiscal policy is relaxing, then the natural reaction is to tighten monetary policy. but one should take bis central bankers ’ speeches into account that monetary policy cannot always be a substitute to a sound fiscal policy. in other words, not always and in any circumstances can monetary policy steps compensate for fiscal policy measures. secondly, i will touch upon the risks related to pro - cyclical fiscal policies. we have experimented this in romania and are fully aware on the risks related to the boom - bust cycles. during booms, as budget revenues pick up there is a strong temptation to spend more and no appetite to publicly debate the issue of structural deficits. on the other hand, when bust emerges one realize how limited your toolkit is and that all measures to address the situation translates in to a prolonged recession and gdp volatility. last but not least, i will refer to the monetary policy by underlining how essential financial stability is to help achieve our overriding goal which is price stability. as i said before, it is my belief that the two are not conflicting ; they may be compatible if your measures are carefully implemented. over the past few years the nbr has used all its available instruments to fulfil its tasks in the area of achieving price stability, seeking to ensure a low volatility of the exchange rate – an exchange rate which is set by the market. in short, all our steps have focused on maintaining stability and rebuilding confidence. in conclusion, over the past 10 – 15 years most economists have discovered good governance – with its four pillars : transparency, accountability, predictability and participation – as a major determinant of economic growth. thus, economic governance implies the need to ensure stable, transparent and predictable rules that encourage competition and fair access to public services. it is achieved through a country ’ s public and private sector institutions and the civil society. moreover, the recent crisis, which today wreaks havoc given the structural interdependencies worldwide, has undersco