community agreed to massively increase imf resources to a total of 750 billion us - dollars, with substantial worldwide contributions. already in march 2009, the eu quadrupled its balance of payments support funds for non - euro area eu member states to 50 billion eur and the eu committed another 75 billion eur ( approx. 100 billion us - dollars ) in the form of bilateral loans to the imf in order to support its lending capacity. this prompt increase of global and european firewalls constituted important stabilizing steps at this very early stage of the crisis, which were particularly important for the central and southeastern european ( cesee ) region. in a similar vein, the so - called “ vienna initiative ” had been launched already in january 2009 in order to create a framework for safeguarding the financial stability in cesee. the “ vienna initiative ” served as a forum for major international financial institutions, among them the imf and the world bank, the most important european institutions, home and host country regulatory and fiscal authorities and the largest banking groups operating in the region. the “ vienna initiative ” helped to avoid a potentially region - wide systemic crisis in the cesee banking sector. in the following years, as the crisis had not abated, european firewalls for the euro area members, the esfs and its permanent successor institution, the esm, were established and their firepower was substantially increased in order to address the challenges arising from the banking and sovereign debt crises. furthermore, in december 2011 the euro area and other eu member states committed additional bilateral loans to the imf of up to 200 billion eur ( usd 270 billion ), thus strengthening once more the imf ’ s firepower. global cooperation even went one step further and got a new political and institutional dimension. for the first time in history, the imf and the eu jointly entered into macroeconomic adjustment programs for individual eu member states. this implied that consistent and mutually agreed decisions had to be taken on the respective program financing, the initial program design including macroeconomic conditionalities as well as on program surveillance. this close cooperation between the imf and the eu, which has posed numerous challenges for both sides, has proven mutually beneficial ; in particular also due to the imf ’ s longstanding expertises in macroeconomic programs as well as its well - established international credibility. from 2009 to 2011, several eu member states outside the euro area, such as latvia, hungary and romania, were the first beneficia

david dodge : bank of canadaa€™s views on the canadain economy and its monetary policy objective opening statement by mr david dodge, governor of the bank of canada, to the house of commons standing committee on finance, ottawa, 1 may 2007. * * * good morning, mr. chairman and members of the committee. we appreciate the opportunity to meet with your committee, which we usually do twice a year, following the release of our monetary policy report. we believe that these meetings help us to keep members of parliament and, through you, all canadians, informed of the bank's views on the economy and about the objective of monetary policy and the actions we take to achieve it. when paul and i appeared before the finance committee last october, we noted then that the outlook for growth in the canadian economy had been revised down slightly from earlier expectations. in our latest monetary policy report, which we released last thursday, we noted that canada's economic growth did indeed slow, but recently, inflation has been higher than expected. after considering the full range of indicators, the bank now judges that the canadian economy was operating just above its production capacity in the first quarter of this year. we expect that, over the projection horizon, domestic demand will continue to be the main driver of growth in canada. with the u. s. slowdown now expected to be somewhat more prolonged than previously projected, net exports should exert a slightly greater drag on canada's growth in 2007. the canadian economy is now projected to grow by 2. 2 per cent in 2007 and 2. 7 per cent in both 2008 and 2009. this would return the economy to its production capacity in the second half of 2007 and keep it there through 2008 and 2009. core inflation should remain slightly above 2 per cent over the coming months, given pressures on capacity and the impact of higher core food prices. but with the economy projected to return to its production capacity in the second half of this year and with further easing of pressures from housing prices, upward pressure on core inflation is expected to moderate, bringing the core inflation rate back to 2 per cent by the end of 2007. total cpi inflation is projected to rise above the 2 per cent inflation target in the second half of this year, peaking below 3 per cent near the end of 2007 before returning to the target by mid - 2008. we at the bank continue to judge that the risks to our inflation projection are roughly balanced, although there is now a slight tilt to the upside