9 more specifically, both countries made country - specific commitments pertaining to structural policies10, strengthening the macroprudential toolkit and transposing the eu anti - money laundering directives into national legislation. close cooperation – the path to the banking union bulgaria and croatia, as prospective erm ii members, also established close cooperation between ecb banking supervision and their national competent authorities ( ncas ) under the legal framework of the single supervisory mechanism ( ssm ). they were asked to do so as any country that wishes to join the euro area not only has to ensure sustainable economic convergence, but should also be ready to participate in the banking union. the idea behind a country participating in the banking union before adopting the euro is to promptly address potential weaknesses in its domestic banking sector. this, in turn, avoids these weaknesses weighing on the national economy and public finances in the future, with negative spillovers across the entire euro area. from a procedural point of view, establishing close cooperation requires the prospective member country to adopt legislation that allows the ecb to carry out its supervisory tasks. moreover, the banking sector has to undergo a comprehensive assessment by ecb banking supervision, very similar to the one conducted on euro area banks in 2014 before the ssm was set up. 11 in addition, the ecb can request information from the national supervisory authority and provide it with technical support to facilitate its smooth transition to the ssm supervisory approach. once close cooperation is established, the member state participates in the ssm – as well as 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches the single resolution mechanism – with the same rights and obligations as the other participating member states, except for small differences. 12 as regards close cooperation with the central banks of bulgaria and croatia, the decisions of the ecb ’ s governing council will apply 14 days after their publication in the official journal of the eu. once the bulgarian and croatian significant banks have been formally identified, the ecb will begin supervising banks in these countries on 1 october 2020. ensuring a sustainable convergence path the prior commitments taken by bulgaria and croatia in recent years spurred important reforms that will mitigate risks under erm ii. however, these reforms will not fix all the imbalances and vulnerabilities that the two countries are facing. i therefore welcome the additional voluntary policy commitments taken by bulgaria and croatia when joining erm ii. 13these post - entry commitments aim at ensuring sustainable economic convergence by the time the two countries adopt the euro. the ecb and the

yesterday, reserves held with the reserve bank were above $ 1. 84 billion, a historical high and sufficient to cover 5. 2 months of retained imports of goods and non - factor services. ladies and gentleman, the numbers are coming together for us and i have not seen them this good for a long time. the government has played its part in recent years and continues to do so, but we are also now seeing the private sector, the often quoted “ engine ” of growth, stepping up to the plate in a serious way. on our recent road trips in the central and western divisions and in discussions with captains of fijian industry we have noted a general buzz of confidence. a confidence and optimism that has this sector spending money to grow their businesses, and in their doing so, they grow fiji. on that note let me thank you all for your kind attention. i wish you all the best in today ’ s presentations and deliberations and hope that we can together come up with innovative ideas in further addressing our economy ’ s challenges. before i finish, please allow me to relate a brief story to you. many years ago i used to play in the suva cricket competition for a team made up of players of different ages varying from school boys to near senior citizens, both locals and foreigners and of many different ethnic backgrounds. we were truly a mixed bag of people who loved the game. we did not come from the well known traditional cricketing strongholds of lau or qvs, and were not part of the expatriate players who grew up representing their schools in australia or new zealand and who opted to join the top teams here. we were just your bunch of keen cricketers bent on succeeding as a unit. we committed ourselves and played smart and moved from the “ c ” grade to the “ a ” grade competition in 3 seasons, playing at the top level and holding our own for a number of years after that ( there were of course many more teams back in the 1980s and cricket actually had exclusive use of albert park from october to april each year! ). we had achieved much of what we set out to do through great teamwork and much enthusiasm for what we were doing. i can still remember those days quite vividly and it was a great experience in togetherness. we actually called ourselves tovata heads, which for us literally meant “ heads together ”. vinaka vakalevu and thank you all for listening. end bis central bankers ’ speeches