stanley fischer : “ the paris club at fifty ” address by professor stanley fischer, governor of the bank of israel, at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the paris club, paris, 14 june 2006. these remarks were prepared for presentation at the ” fiftieth anniversary conference of the paris club ”, to be held in paris on june 14, 2006. i am grateful to mark allen of the imf for helpful discussions. * * * it is a pleasure and an honor for me to take part in this celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the paris club – both as a former official of the imf, who learned so much from the former chairman of the paris club with whom i had the pleasure of working for over five years, and as governor of the bank of israel. the paris club is the gifted child of the french tresor. but it is also in many ways a british institution – and i take that to be a compliment. it is a club, a voluntary gathering of interested parties, it operates without a written constitution, it operates case - by - case, and it displays a remarkable pragmatism and flexibility that has enabled it to evolve and deal with an enormous variety of debt problems over the years – over 400 agreements with over 80 debtor countries and more than $ 500 billion rescheduled. in performing its essential task, it has stood the cause of development well over the past fifty years. and at the age of fifty, it faces new challenges that ensure that it will have to continue to evolve with the times. i. debt relief like the bank for international settlements, the paris club grew out of the need for debt relief – a need which has been with us for as long as debt has existed. in gradually developing a flexible set of rules for granting relief on inter - governmental debts, mostly the debts of developing countries, the club has made a major contribution to the orderly operation of the international financial system. the principle of conditionality is critical. by making the conditionality that of the imf, the paris club gained at least two major benefits for the international community : that of operating with the fund ’ s skilled professionals, who understand how to design and monitor an economic program ; and the legitimacy of operating within an institutional framework in which both the creditors and debtors are members. in turn, by putting the imf at center stage in developing and enforcing conditionality, the club contributed to the development of the fund ’ s analytic and

phase of the financial institution electronic data submission project. from today onwards, financial institutions ’ submission of over 200 hard copy and crf reports would be substituted by merely 41 data sets. consequently, this would more or less lessen the burden and make it more convenient for financial institutions to report data to the bank of thailand. the second phase of the project, which is scheduled to start on 2nd january 2004, would involve the implementation of the electronic data submission on financial institutions ’ foreign exchange transactions. whether the project could meet the setforth schedule very much depends upon continual support from every participating financial institutions. the third phase of the project involves the economic data system and is scheduled to commence its operation on 2nd july 2004. each set of economic statistics would be compiled by its corresponding official organizations while the degree of success of the electronic data transfer and submission would mostly depend on the readiness of the government agencies. at present, there are quite a number of project initiatives which have already been implemented ; for instance, the emis project, which is a joint project in conjunction with the fiscal policy office, ministry of finance. the project would link databases of 4 participating agencies ; namely, the fiscal policy office, the national budget bureau, the bank of thailand and the national economic and social development board ( nesdb ). with this regard, the bank of thailand would inform about the data linkages with the fiscal policy office, accordingly. and finally, i hereby would like to take this opportunity to thank all financial institutions, the bank of thailand executives, all staff in the dms project, the ibm ( thailand ) company limited including all related officials who greatly help push this project along the way throughout its first phase. i also hope to see this type of mutual cooperation continue until the project becomes fully completed. now, it ’ s the right moment, i hereby would officially commence the financial institution data submission and transfer under the data management system.