very high by international standards, and it still is. however it has been declining a bit in the recent years but it is important that this decline be temporary. [ slide 7 ] on the policy front, some important steps have been taken to bolster growth. these include e. g. the competitiveness pact which i mentioned, significant deregulation of trade, and a new transportation code which can open up new possibilities for private companies and strengthen the incentives for infrastructure investments. the government is working on many other areas too, such as improving the functioning of the labour market, education, the conditions for bio - economy and clean - tech sectors as well as digititalization. * all in all, the finnish economy has both problems and strengths. after a long recession, there is now reason for optimism as economic activity is picking up and especially in construction the recovery is strong. on the other hand, there are structural problems still, which have to do with the ageing population and the need to accelerate productivity growth. also, our economy is quite dependent on international markets, and the outlook for the world economy is not without risks at this time as you well know. however, despite these challenges, i would say that in finland the fundaments for a sustained recovery are well in place. the two strongest points of the finnish economy, according to international competitiveness barometers, are our good education system and good public institutions. both are regularly classified among the world ’ s best by outside observers. they serve well the firms operating in finland. these strengths give finland a good starting point for the coming years, and i trust that your visit to our country will convince you of the forward - looking dynamism and potential of our economy. thank you very much for your interest. 3 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches

quite low. smart phones today are equipped with emailing, calendar, contact information, camera, music, radio, games, gpss and maps, dictionary, word processing capacity, spread sheet and presentation processing functionalities, amongst others. the range of mobile phone features and services seem to grow at an increasing speed and versatility. especially the young generation appears ready to adapt rapidly to new telephone use patterns. the mobile phone can become the ideal platform for personal payments. one can easily see online account balances and the complete transaction details on the phone's screen. it also has all the necessary communication capabilities : long - distance communication and complete internet access for e - banking and payment authorisation connection to banks'payment accounts and short distance communication for terminal and phone - to - phone connections the user interface is familiar to everyone with a colour screen ; it has a secure keyboard for pin and other payment input and it has sufficient processing power including encryption and other security processing. the sim ( subscriber identity module ) card used in the gsm mobile phones could be re - used for payment security solutions as it follows the security norms for the chips used in modern payment cards. the mobile phone could easily store the card data of all personal cards in the same way that it stores connection information for all friends and business partners. it would show the available card alternatives on the screen and, over time, probably learn the preferred one to use in given payment situations. card information would be easy to update over the air to the phone. the banks'and credit card companies'data bases would store the necessary back up copies, so in case of a hardware failure or loss of the telephone, all important data could be downloaded to a new phone or sim card without difficulty. the phone could also contain or access all the payment details of an account in the same way as the email details can today be accessed using a smart phone. mobile phones can also introduce more convenience to the payment process. the phone could automatically interact with payment terminals using near - field communication capabilities ( rfid, radio frequency identification communication ). the point - of - sale terminal would transfer the payment information to the phone and the payer would just need to check the payment info and accept it by pushing the ok button. for larger payments the payer would be asked to confirm with a pin number. it seems also likely that phones will be equipped with some form of biological recognition capacity. a mobile phone can function both as a sending and receiving terminal and