amando m tetangco, jr : bangko sentral ng pilipinas ’ stakeholders ’ awards – a celebration of solid partnership speech by mr amando m tetangco, jr, governor of bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( the central bank of the philippines ), at the 2013 awards ceremony and appreciation lunch for bsp stakeholders, manila, 16 july 2013. * * * magandang umaga sa inyong lahat! on behalf of my colleagues at the monetary board and the bangko sentral ng pilipinas, i thank all of you for accepting our invitation today to our stakeholders awards ceremony and appreciation lunch for bsp stakeholders. as in years past, this ceremony takes place during the bangko sentral ’ s anniversary month. this year however, is more special : this month – july 3 to be exact – we commemorated the 20th anniversary of the bangko sentral ng pilipinas. and today, we mark the 10th year of our stakeholders awards, the annual celebration of our fruitful partnership and collaboration. ladies and gentlemen. in observing these milestones, we take the opportunity to express our deep appreciation to all our guests in this hall and to our other stakeholders across the country for helping us craft policies and implement programs that make lives better for our people. among others, the continuous improvement in the quality of our surveys provides a good anchor for the monetary policies of the bangko sentral ng pilipinas, the main objective of which is to keep prices low and stable. with your support, we continue to be successful in this effort. we have tamed inflation at low single digit levels – 2. 8 % as of june 2013, with year - to - date inflation at 2. 9 percent. one of the monetary tools used by the bangko sentral to influence inflation is its policy rates, the benchmark used by banks to transact with their own customers. under the bangko sentral ’ s inflation targeting framework, policy rates are adjusted appropriately and pre - emptively to ward off inflation threats. in general, it takes policy rate decisions from 18 to 24 months to work their way through the economy. thus, the bsp ’ s monetary board ensures that its policy rate settings are based on accurate informationintensive studies such as business and consumer outlook. this includes the quarterly business expectations survey which covers the top 7, 000 corporations in the country and the quarterly consumer expectations survey which covers 5, 000 households. we are

salute the department of education for being our active partner in bringing financial education to millions of our schoolchildren. we also acknowledge the banks who help our youth develop the habit of saving and give lessons on personal finance to teachers and parents. so far, we have made significant strides in the development of the philippine microfinance sector that has liberated millions of entrepreneurial filipinos from poverty and transformed them into net savers in banks. in fact, our latest data indicate that for the first time consolidated bank deposits of microentrepreneurs at over p8 billion have now exceeded their total bank loans. i also thank all the industry groups, all companies – big and small, our partners from both public and private sectors for your support in bangko sentral ’ s advocacies that promote coin recirculation and clean banknotes, as well as protection against counterfeit money and financial scams. once again, ladies and gentlemen, we at the bangko sentral ng pilipinas thank and congratulate all of you for being our active partners in the pursuit of our mandate and in making lives better through better policies and programs. together, let us steer the economy toward balanced, sustained and inclusive growth. maraming salamat sa inyong lahat! mabuhay ang ating mahal na bansang pilipinas! bis central bankers ’ speeches