developments in the current account surplus. if these fluctuations are factored out, it becomes clear that the net international investment position has not increased significantly over the observation period. the high fluctuations illustrate how important the other influencing variables already mentioned are in the development of the net international investment position. i will go into this in more detail later. let me just add something here : although the net international investment position has not increased, switzerland ’ s gross claims and liabilities abroad have continued to rise, particularly since the 1990s. in 2016, switzerland ’ s foreign assets were almost seven times its gdp, while its foreign liabilities were more than five times its gdp. by international standards, switzerland continues to rank well above the average in terms of its integration with the global economy, not only in relation to trade in goods and services but also in relation to portfolio and direct investment. as we saw earlier, the current account balance corresponds to the difference between savings and domestic investment. in the international perspective, it is often argued that countries with current account surpluses invest too little or save too much. where does switzerland fit in here? chart 3 shows average saving and investment rates during the period 2010 – 2015 in various groups of countries and in switzerland. saving rates are depicted in red, investment rates in blue. as the chart shows, while switzerland invests relatively heavily by international standards, it also saves far more than other countries. at 24 %, switzerland ’ s investment rate exceeds the average for both the advanced economies and the oecd countries ; and, at 36 %, our saving rate is among the very highest. switzerland ’ s high investment rate shows that the current account surplus is far more a function of a comparatively high saving rate than of low domestic investment. global current account balances let me now give you an overview of the chronological and geographical development of global current account surpluses and deficits. page 5 / 13 chart 4 shows the development of these surpluses and deficits as a percentage of global gdp over the past 20 years. positive values represent a current account surplus ; negative values a current account deficit. i would like to highlight trends in a few selected economies. looking first at the countries which have a current account deficit, we see that the us is among them. it is represented by the blue section of the bar. the pink section denotes all the other current account deficits in the world. in 2016, this group comprised 106 countries. let ’ s turn now to the countries that have a current

all sizes across the country significantly improves the federal reserve ’ s ability to effectively carry out its central - bank responsibilities. perhaps most important, as this crisis has once again demonstrated, the federal reserve ’ s ability to identify and address diverse and hard - to - predict threats to financial stability depends critically on the information, expertise, and powers that it has as both a bank supervisor and a central bank. not only in this crisis, but also in episodes such as the 1987 stock market crash and the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001, the federal reserve ’ s supervisory role was essential for it to contain threats to financial stability. 3 the federal reserve ’ s making of monetary policy and its management of the discount window also benefit from its supervisory experience. 4 notably, the federal reserve ’ s role as a supervisor of state member banks of all sizes, including community banks, offers insights about conditions and prospects across the full range of financial institutions, not just the very largest, and provides useful information about the economy and financial conditions throughout the nation. such information greatly assists in the making of monetary policy. the legislation passed by the house last december would preserve the supervisory authority that the federal reserve needs to carry out its central banking functions effectively. improving the federal reserve ’ s supervision of banking organizations the federal reserve strongly supports ongoing efforts in the congress to reform financial regulation and close existing gaps in the regulatory framework. 5 while we await passage of for further discussion, see the bernanke letter to dodd and shelby in note 2. our ability to monitor key payment and settlement systems also depends critically on our supervisory powers, as several key institutions involved in payments and settlements have state member bank or edge charters. without bank supervisory authority, the federal reserve would have no ability to examine or regulate such institutions. lack of strong consolidated supervision of systemically critical firms not organized as bank holding companies proved to be the most serious regulatory gap. in addition, under the gramm - leach - bliley act of 1999, the federal reserve ’ s consolidated supervision of bank holding companies was both narrowly focused on the safety and soundness of their bank subsidiaries and heavily reliant on functional supervisors of the bank and regulated nonbank subsidiaries of these companies ; in turn, the functional supervisors themselves were statutorily focused only on the safety and soundness of the specific entities they regulated. none of the federal regulators had sufficient authority to focus on the systemic risk that large banking organizations posed. comprehensive reform legislation, we have been conducting an intensive self - examination