like to turn to economic developments abroad, as these have a considerable bearing on the inflation and economic outlook in switzerland. the past few months have seen further improvements in the international environment. the global economy exhibited strong, broad - based growth in the third quarter. international trade, in particular, remained very dynamic. in view of companies ’ improved capacity utilisation and growing confidence, investment continued to recover. developments in employment remained positive, which helped to raise household confidence, too. in most countries, inflation moved sideways. economic signals for the coming months are positive, as well. we expect the global economy to continue developing favourably. for the euro area and the us, we have revised our growth forecasts slightly upwards. economic recovery and convergence with the inflation target are most advanced in the us. this prompted the us federal reserve to carry out a number of interest rate adjustments and to initiate the reduction of the balance sheet this year. the coming quarters are likely to see a gradual continuation of monetary policy normalisation in the us. by contrast, the european central bank intends to pursue its asset purchase programme until at least september 2018, and to leave its key rates unchanged beyond that horizon. in japan, too, monetary policy is expected to remain expansionary. alongside the global economic baseline scenario, the risks also need to be taken into consideration. in the short term, global growth could be stronger than projected in the baseline scenario, due to the significant upturn in household and business confidence. in the medium term, however, risks for the international economy are still to the downside. these risks include ongoing structural weaknesses, political developments in certain countries, and potential international tensions. furthermore, the normalisation of monetary policy in the advanced economies presents challenges. an abrupt rise in the currently very low capital market interest rates and risk premia, in particular, could negatively impact the global economy. swiss economic outlook i shall now turn to the economic outlook for switzerland. gdp grew in the third quarter at an annualised 2. 5 %, lending further momentum to the economic recovery. growth was primarily driven by manufacturing, which benefited from page 2 / 4 berne, 14 december 2017 thomas jordan news conference dynamic global economic developments and the weaker swiss franc. accordingly, exports recorded marked gains. investment in equipment also grew noticeably. in the wake of this development, capacity utilisation in manufacturing increased further. the overall economic situation improved, too. higher capacity utilisation, a more robust earnings situation and favourable global economic

18 % of uk banks ’ domestic lending ; if one excludes the real estate sector, however, the figure is closer to 12 %. and lending to smes accounts for only 4 %. businesses borrow for many reasons not simply for investment, and business investment in the uk as a whole is the result of millions of uk businesses assessing the merits of individual investment opportunities, financing options and other considerations. in 2015, in order to get a better understanding of the supply of finance for productive investment and to support the government ’ s productivity plan, the bank initiated research into ‘ productive finance ’. our aim see imf ( 2015 ) ‘ uneven growth ‘, world economic outlook, april 2015. the wilson committee was formed in january 1977 with the following terms of reference :'to enquire into the role and functioning, at home and abroad, of financial institutions in the united kingdom and their value to the economy ; to review in particular the provision of funds for industry and trade ; to consider what changes are required in the existing arrangements for the supervision of these institutions, including the possible extension of the public sector, and to make recommendations.'the committee concluded that the availability of funds was not the prime cause of low industrial investment and identified two areas of concern. first, the reduction of new issues of long - term fixed - interest industrial debentures due to high and fluctuating rates of inflation. and second, that the provision of finance for small firms was generally accepted to be unsatisfactory in a number of respects. see moore, p, g'the wilson committee review of the functioning of financial institutions – some statistical aspect ', journal of the royal statistical society, vol. 144 ( 1 ), pp32 - 65. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches was to get a better picture of whether firms ‘ underinvest ’ – ie if they turn away profitable investment opportunities and if so what obstacles to investment they face. to do so, we launched a new survey of firms, the results of which are published today. the survey covered a sample over 1, 200 firms. it is representative of the population of uk firms across regions, industries and size. some caveats are required here. in the survey responses there was an under - representation of younger firms. this makes the results less informative about the investment behaviour and financing needs of younger companies, particularly of start - ups. moreover, as this is the first