norman t l chan : brief remarks on the development of the rmb market opening remarks by mr norman t l chan, chief executive of the hong kong monetary authority, at the second hong kong – australia rmb trade and investment dialogue, hong kong, 22 may 2014. * * * treasury secretary ( martin ) parkinson, ( deputy governor ) philip ( lowe ), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen : 1. good morning. it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the second hong kong – australia rmb trade and investment dialogue. i would like to especially extend a warm welcome to our friends from australia. this dialogue attests to the spirit of collaboration that we share, and indeed it is collaboration that will take us forward in the development of the rmb market. the seminar today will be a good opportunity for us to take stock of recent developments, exchange views and share experiences, and identify our priorities ahead. 2. i recall that three years ago, in march 2011, i visited sydney on a roadshow to talk about hong kong ’ s newly created offshore rmb business platform. this was in fact the very first in a series of roadshows that i and my hkma colleagues organised, covering key markets in south america, russia, middle east, japan, spain, the uk and the us. in our sydney roadshow, i was particularly impressed by the keen interest and high level of curiosity of the australian audience, who wanted to understand more what rmb internationalisation was all about and what it meant for them as corporates with trading and investment links with china. we were then at an early stage of this long and exciting journey of rmb internationalisation. at that time, the cross - border rmb trade settlement scheme was still a “ pilot ” and only covered selected provinces in the mainland. rmb trade settlement handled by banks in hong kong was only some rmb100 billion a month, which is less than one - fifth of the rmb600 billion registered in march this year. 3. the offshore rmb market in hong kong has indeed achieved phenomenal progress in the past three years. hong kong ’ s rmb real time gross settlement system registered an average daily turnover of close to rmb700 billion in april this year, which is about twelve times the level when i visited sydney in 2011. in the foreign exchange market – another area where activities have picked up sharply – we are seeing an average turnover of rmb spot and forward transactions of some

margarita delgado : productivity, the labour market and spain's ( non - ) convergence with the euro area speech by ms margarita delgado, acting governor of the bank of spain, at the 3rd conference on the spanish economy, organised by the bank of spain, the centro de estudios monetarios y financieros and universidad internacional menendez pelayo, santander, 5 july 2024. * * * i would like to thank the rector of the universidad internacional menendez pelayo and everyone who has helped organise this conference, and all the speakers and panellists and each of you here today for taking part. allow me to open this second day of the conference on the spanish economy by underlining its purpose and the importance of the issues it addresses. this is the third edition of this annual conference organised by the banco de espana, the centro de estudios monetarios y financieros ( cemfi ) and the universidad internacional menendez pelayo ( uimp ). its aim is to provide a forum for discussion to share insight into the main problems facing the spanish economy and possible solutions. these discussions must be rooted in rigorous economic research and that is why each year we seek to gather the academic and research community with a particular interest in the spanish economy. this year, we are focusing on two fundamental challenges that, although addressed last year, merit special attention owing to their importance and continuing relevance. the first is the high unemployment rate, the theme of yesterday's two sessions and panel. the second is low productivity growth, which will be discussed in today's sessions and panel. both of these problems have hampered convergence between income levels in spain and in other european countries since the end of the last century. in particular, spain has not narrowed the gap with per capita income in the eu since the 1990s. measured in purchasing power parity terms, spain's gdp per capita was 92 % of the eu's in 1990, falling to 85 % in 2022. spain's lower productivity explains most of this difference. in fact, if productivity per worker in spain were equal to the eu average ( it is currently 11 percentage points ( pp ) lower ), spain's per capita income would be just 4 % lower than the eu average. and if the spanish employment rate were equal to the eu average, the income gap per capita would shrink by a further 7 pp. when making this comparison, spain still benefits from a slight