of massive fiscal stimulus packages, sweeping proposals for regulatory reforms and various unorthodox policy measures being introduced to stabilise and restore market confidence in the financial system. whilst these measures were necessary and have contributed towards some stabilisation in global financial markets, more importantly is the long - term sustainability of this trend. with the urgency for immediate measures receding, it is hoped that it will give way to consensus on finding fundamental solutions that involve regulatory and institutional reforms both at the national and international levels. conclusion today, we have the opportunity to listen to professor ito's lecture on the similarities and differences between the asian financial crisis and the japanese crisis of 1997 - 1998, and the us financial crisis of 2008 - 2009 and the valuable lessons that can be drawn in a global environment that is more complex and interconnected. professor ito has written extensively on financial policy and has been a policy advisor to the government of japan. we look forward to benefiting from your experience and wisdom on this subject.

that commercial paper issuance by nonfinancial corporations was not declining sharply at the time nor were rates rising to unprecedented levels. but this type of data contains little information about the ability of firms to issue new paper. moreover, as the economy slowed abruptly the need to raise additional funds through new issuance increased. it was clear from our market contacts that the commercial paper market was rapidly grinding to a halt as both financial and non - financial institutions felt the need to build liquidity. the policy response was the cpff which served as a liquidity backstop to facilitate issuance of commercial paper by highly rated firms. in addition to showing how publicly available financial statistics in the absence of real time market intelligence can sometimes lead to incorrect diagnoses, these three examples demonstrate the importance of detailed information about markets in articulating the precise market failure that might justify a government intervention and the form the intervention should take given the failure. as noted above, many of the emergency liquidity facilities rolled out in the crisis were developed in a very short period of time by experts with years of experience in these various markets. all of the new facilities were designed to price the emergency liquidity such that as market stresses eased, their use would decline. this is exactly what happened. furthermore, the most convincing evidence that the facilities correctly addressed market failures related to liquidity is the fact that none of them lost any money. 19 conclusion the past few years have seen important changes in the role of central bank interactions with financial markets. some of the main lessons i take away are : published statistics and market prices only tell part of the story of developments in financial markets, at best ; beliefs of market participants and the distribution across markets matter, and information on them needs to be collected and analyzed on a frequent basis ; active operations in financial markets allow central banks to flexibly respond to unexpected events and understand market functioning issues and changes in market infrastructure. most importantly, the global financial the federal reserve established swap arrangements with the reserve bank of australia, the banco central do brasil, the bank of canada, the danmarks nationalbank, the bank of england, the european central bank, the bank of japan, the bank of korea, the banco de mexico, the reserve bank of new zealand, the norges bank, the monetary authority of singapore, the sveriges riksbank, and the swiss national bank. for further information, see the following list of faqs : http : / / www. federalreserve