from the disaster. let me explain the bank ’ s measures following the earthquake. since immediately after the earthquake, the bank has swiftly taken a range of measures, such as the provision of ample liquidity and the further enhancement of monetary easing, focusing on three major aspects : maintaining the functioning of financial and settlement systems, ensuring the stability of financial markets, and supporting the economy. on march 14, 2011, the first business day after the disaster, the bank increased the amount of the program, mainly of the purchases of risk assets, by about 5 trillion yen, and thereby prevented any deterioration in business sentiment from adversely affecting economic activity. in april, the bank decided to introduce a funds - supplying operation that supplies financial institutions in disaster areas with longer - term funds in order to provide support to their initial response efforts to meet demand for funds for restoration and rebuilding. it also decided to broaden the range of eligible collateral for money market operations. so far, loans of about 500 billion yen of the total amount of 1 trillion yen for this fundssupplying operation have been disbursed. the reason that financial institutions in disaster areas have made relatively little use of loans under this operation is that their funding conditions have generally been favorable. nevertheless, it can be said that the operation has been effective in that it has provided a safety net to help these institutions with their efforts to meet demand for funds for restoration and rebuilding. given that full - fledged rebuilding efforts are now getting under way, and taking into account requests from financial institutions in disaster areas, the bank decided to extend the deadline for new applications for loans by one year to april 30, 2013 at last week ’ s monetary policy meeting on march 12 and 13, 2012. bis central bankers ’ speeches

medicine, healthcare, and new energy sources. to capture growing global demand, particularly in emerging economies, it is important to both make efforts to increase exports and shift to business models that focus on local production for local consumption and the international division of labor and thereby increase revenues from overseas. however, a key point in this context is that if the shift to overseas production occurs gradually, this will allow domestic workers to transfer to other growing sectors of the economy, and therefore maintain employment levels in japan ; on the other hand, if the shift to overseas production takes place rapidly as a result of the appreciation of the yen or other factors, it will lead to a decline in domestic employment and thus be detrimental to the economy. moreover, with the working - age population decreasing, in order to boost the labor force – which in turn can sustain the newly created domestic demand – it is important to increase labor market flexibility to allow workers to change industries more easily and to boost labor market participation of the elderly and of women who wish to work but are not currently working. the second requirement for increasing the growth potential of the economy, as mentioned earlier, is to improve productivity in industries with significant potential for job creation. economic growth comes from increases in three factors : the number of workers, the number of hours worked, and labor productivity. therefore, in order to strengthen japan ’ s growth potential, labor productivity must be improved along with efforts to boost the labor force. during the two decades from 1990, the average annual rate of increase in labor productivity stagnated at around 1 percent. this is attributable to the shift of workers to service industries, where labor productivity growth is slow. according to a report by the japan productivity center, while labor productivity in manufacturing industries grew at a relatively high average pace of 2. 5 percent a year during the two decades, that in service industries – which have significant potential for job creation – grew by only around 1. 0 percent a year. at the same time, japan ’ s labor market structure changed, with the number of workers in manufacturing industries falling since the mid - 1990s, while that in service industries has been rising, so that bis central bankers ’ speeches service industries now account for 30 percent of workers in all industries. in particular, along with the aging of the population, there has been a notable increase in demand for services for the elderly, such as in the areas of healthcare and nursing care. this trend is expected to continue. therefore, the key to enhancing the