economy where a significant number of transactions far exceed the statutory cash reporting requirements of the central bank. the sale of diamonds is especially conducted in cash, mainly u. s. dollars. policing of the porous borders and the long coastline for smugglers is another big challenge particularly with the inadequacy of manpower and other logistics. i believe however, that as a country, we will be up to the task and that is why the bank of sierra leone is doing all within its powers to attract the necessary assistance from our development partners. ladies and gentlemen, it is my singular honour to declare this workshop open. in doing so, let me once again use this opportunity to thank all our development partners, particularly the unodc and giaba. i wish all the participants fruitful deliberations and hope that at the end of this fourday training seminar, we will be more and better equipped in tackling this ugly problem – money laundering. i thank you all and wish our facilitators a pleasant stay in freetown and a safe return journey.

mario ( 2015 ). “ structural reforms, inflation, and monetary policy. ” introductory speech at the ecb forum on central banking, 22 may 2015. bis central bankers ’ speeches moreover, while the strength of the crisis shock has inevitably led to high job destruction, the employment cost does appear to have been influenced by the margins of adjustment available to firms. on the whole those that had scope to adjust on the intensive margin have cut jobs less. for example, new micro level research from the eurosystem finds that firms with flexibility at the plant - level have reduced employment less during the crisis than those bound by centralised wage bargaining agreements, partly because they have been more able to adjust wages and working time to economic conditions. 2 labour market policies that reflect such principles may therefore be beneficial in most euro area countries. but it does not follow from this that there is an optimal model for the labour market that all must emulate. economies are complex, and how labour markets function depends on manifold interactions at the national level. designing structural reforms thus requires a nuanced and country - specific approach. for example, how the labour market adjusts to shocks depends not only wage formation, but on the overall constellation of labour market institutions within national economies. that is, how the adjustment margins interact with other features such as unemployment insurance, employment protection and active labour market policies – the latter being particularly important in the current context of a “ cleansing ” recession requiring substantial reallocation and retraining of workers. and we know from international experience that different combinations of labour market institutions can produce similar employment outcomes. if one compares, for example, the largest euro area economy, germany, with the us and denmark, we can see that they have different levels of public expenditure on labour market protection ( 0. 1 % in the us, 0. 7 % in germany and 2. 1 % in denmark ), different levels of union density ( us 11 %, de 19 %, dk 69 % ) and a different percentage of employees covered by wage bargaining agreements ( us 13 %, de 62 %, dk 80 % ). unemployment rates in all three countries have nonetheless been on a downward trend since 2009. moreover, how labour market institutions affect adjustment also depends critically on interactions with other policy areas. in greece, for example, it took around two years for lower labour costs to translate into lower prices, largely because product markets were highly protected and did not react. due to structural factors the responsiveness of the