and financial innovations like mobile money financial services and agent banking constitute critical elements of expanding financial access. in addition, i would like to highlight to the crane bank management that being located at entebbe airport brings additional responsibility in the area of customer service standards and national image. for a new visitor to uganda, often this branch may just be the first port of interaction with our country the banking sector today is characterized by heightened competition and increased risks. this requires financial institutions to continuously innovate to keep pace with the evolving risks. i am happy to note that crane bank ( u ) ltd has steadily improved its service delivery and rolled out new products to meet the changing needs of the clientele. i urge crane bank ( u ) ltd. to design robust risk management processes and internal controls to mitigate increased risks. bis central bankers ’ speeches in addition to proximity of financial services, another key factor which drives growth in the lending business of banks and therefore, financial access in uganda is that of affordability of credit. bank of uganda has for the fifth time kept the central bank rate ( cbr ) unchanged at 12 present having contained the inflation momentum as reflected in the drop of the headline inflation to 3. 4 present in april from 4. 0 present in march 2013. a neutral monetary policy stance was maintained by the central bank in order to boost economic activity further. going forward, the core inflation rate is projected to stabilize around the 5 present medium term target. in view of this, let me take this opportunity to once again urge banks to align lending rates with the cbr and facilitate the stimulating effects that are intended from bou ’ s monetary policy stance to be channelled to the economy. with these remarks, i commend the board of directors and management of crane bank ltd. for their demonstrated commitment to serving the people of uganda and beyond. it is now my honour and pleasure to declare crane bank ltd entebbe airport branch officially open for banking business. thank you. bis central bankers ’ speeches

##ening here at home. inflation is broadening because the canadian economy is in excess demand. there aren ’ t enough goods and services to meet the demand we ’ re seeing as people enjoy a fully reopened economy. employers can ’ t find enough workers and they ’ re increasing wages to attract and retain staff. with households spending robustly, businesses are passing on higher input and labour costs by raising prices. higher interest rates will help slow demand and allow supply time to catch up. consumer spending will moderate as the pent - up demand from pandemic restrictions eases and the cost of borrowing increases. housing market activity is already cooling rapidly from unsustainably high levels during the pandemic. and slower global growth will reduce demand for our exports. taking all of this into account, we are forecasting annual growth in economic activity will be around 3½ % this year, 1¾ % next year and 2½ % in 2024. as global bottlenecks gradually resolve and tighter monetary policy works its way through the economy, inflation will start to come down. while we may see a few more months with cpi inflation around 8 %, we expect it to decline later this year, ease to about 3 % by the end of next year and return to the 2 % target by the end of 2024. this is the soft landing we are projecting. interest rate increases can cool demand and inflation without choking off growth or causing a surge in unemployment. some sectors will be more affected by interest rate increases than others, but the very tight labour market means there is room to reduce the number of job vacancies without having a big impact on overall employment. and with the prices of many of the commodities we export expected to remain elevated, the global forces slowing growth will not affect canada as much as many other countries. but the path to this soft landing has narrowed because elevated inflation is proving more persistent. and this requires stronger action now so consumers and businesses can be confident that inflation will return to its 2 % target. our decision today takes the policy interest rate to 2½ %. that puts it in the longrun neutral range that neither stimulates nor restricts growth. we estimate that range to be between 2 % and 3 %. we continue to expect that interest rates will need to rise further to cool demand and achieve the inflation target. how high our policy rate needs to go will depend on how the economy and inflation evolves. by front - loading interest rate increases now, we are trying