finance. the idea is to leverage public money to rebalance risks and instil confidence so as to draw in private capital. this should enlarge the pool of available 1 / 2 bis - central bankers'speeches capital while allowing projects to tap the innovation, risk management expertise, entrepreneurship, and market development capabilities of the private sector. as asia's leading international financial centre and green finance hub, hong kong is very well positioned to channel the needed investment to sustainable projects in asia and the belt and road countries. we have one of the world's most active equity markets and asia's largest international bond market. in particular, hong kong captured more than one - third of the asian green and sustainable bond issuance last year. nearly 200 esg funds are authorised with the sfc, an increase of 55 % just within a year. meanwhile, we are taking steps to support the further growth of our sustainable finance ecosystem through a mix of regulation and financial incentives and leading by example in terms of the exchange fund's investments. policy initiatives aside, we recognise that communication and in - person contact are equally important. we set up the infrastructure financing facilitation office ( iffo ) back in 2016, with close to 100 partners now, to provide a platform for practitioners and investors to share experience and best practices. recently, we hosted two roundtables with leaders from various financial institutions to discuss ways to bolster climate financing. more events will be planned for the rest of this year. in addition to those events, we have organised delegations to visit the belt and road countries, including saudi arabia and the united arab emirates, to promote dialogue and cooperation, especially in the area of green and sustainability development. notwithstanding the effort that we have put in, a lot more still needs to be done to support the climate transition. i look forward to hearing the insights and ideas from our speakers and panellists at our upcoming discussion. thank you. 2 / 2 bis - central bankers'speeches

to do so thus far. however, on the benefits of monetary stability, or as i would prefer to say, nominal stability, friedman was not wrong. many theories popular even today might lead one to conclude that increased stability in inflation could be purchased only at the cost of reduced stability in output and employment. in fact, over the past two decades, increased inflation stability has been associated with marked increases in the stability of output and employment as well, both in the united states and elsewhere. it has been argued that a lower incidence of exogenous shocks explains these favorable developments, and that may be part of the story. but i believe that there is an important causal relationship as well. for example, low and stable inflation has not only promoted growth and productivity, but it has also reduced the sensitivity of the economy to shocks. one important mechanism has been the anchoring of inflation expectations. when the public is confident that the central bank will maintain low and stable inflation, shocks such as sharp increases in oil prices or large exchange rate movements tend to have at most transitory price - level effects and do not result in sustained inflationary surges. in contrast, when inflation expectations are poorly anchored, as was the case in the 1970s, shocks of these types can destabilize inflation expectations, increasing the inflationary impact and leading to greater volatility in both inflation and output. in summary, one can hardly overstate the influence of friedman ’ s monetary framework on contemporary monetary theory and practice. he identified the key empirical facts and he provided us with broad policy recommendations, notably the emphasis on nominal stability, that have served us well. for these contributions, both policymakers and the public owe milton friedman an enormous debt.