adriano maleiane : financial services efficiency in mozambique opening speech by mr adriano maleiane, governor of the bank of mozambique ( banco de mocambique ), at the swift african regional meeting, maputo, 22 may 2006. * * * dear mr. arthur cousins, swift board member, dear mr. david pryce, regional director for africa dear guests ladies and gentlemen i accepted with satisfaction the invitation to chair the opening ceremony of the swift african regional conference to be held under the slogan “ transforming the future : optimizing the local, regional and global markets ”. i would like to welcome all delegates present in this conference room, especially the african countries ’ representatives. as hosts of the swift african regional conference, we are greatly honoured to welcome you in maputo and wish you a pleasant stay. the great interest and participation in this conference proves the commitment of our governments and financial institutions to information technology current matters that we currently use in order to better prepare our countries to face up the challenges of the globalization and regional and continental integration. nowadays, information technologies are a paramount platform for the activity of various economy sectors, including the financial sector as well as the payment systems. the swift is an integral part of the technological infrastructure that our institutions use for settlement and clearing of bills, in the perspective of better serving the clients, prevent risks associated with our activity and, in general, to contribute for business environment improvement, an important factor to attract investments that we need to accomplish our economic and social development plans. in the globalized world we live, the information technology platforms are ever more harmonised, the reason why it is urgent to improve them in order to reduce the transaction costs and allow an adequate risk management, both in the domestic plan, as well as within the regional and international scope. ladies and gentlemen, our economies continue to be too small in the context of production and world trade. our countries are, in general, very sensible to exogenous shocks, either those resulting from adverse natural factors as well as those induced by situational changes and yet those resulting from changes in the international trade rules. our positioning in the world economy continues to be, in overall terms, that of commodity producers, whose access to international markets still faces various barriers and unequal treatment. this characteristic makes our countries highly dependent on the international community financial support, mainly in the form of grants. mozambique started with deep reforms in 1987, whose results within the financial sector are already visible, as can be

tony latter : why blame the peg? speech by mr tony latter, deputy chief executive of the hong kong monetary authority, at a luncheon of the american chamber of commerce in hong kong, 12 march 2002. * * * introduction when things aren't going too well, it's natural to look for scapegoats. in the case of the hong kong economy, the pegged exchange rate certainly gets its fair share of that treatment. what is the basis for complaints about the peg, and how far are they justified? before examining some of the complaints, however, let us review the monetary policy background. monetary policy it is widely accepted that the duty of monetary policy - and that embraces exchange rate policy - is to provide that monetary environment which is most conducive to long - term growth and prosperity of the economy. this is seen to imply a desire for stable monetary conditions, but there is scope for judgement as to how this stability should be defined. the majority of regimes focus on internal purchasing power and thus aim for low and stable domestic inflation. thus, the practice of inflation targeting has now become quite widespread and well understood. this requires an active monetary policy, necessarily impacting on domestic interest rates and money market liquidity ; and, at least in the strictest form of targeting, it inevitably involves some exchange rate flexibility, even if not an entirely free float. a minority of regimes, of which hong kong is one, focus on a stable external value of the currency - in hong kong's case through the particular mechanism and discipline of the currency board. the more externally oriented an economy is, the greater is the weight which may need to be attached to exchange rate stability within the overall concept of monetary stability. there are various pros and cons of each approach. inflation targeting is less precise, in that it is necessarily based on forward projections, and verifiable indicators of success are only available after a timelag. it also requires a reasonably accurate forecasting process, which may be simpler to realise in a relatively closed than in a highly open economy. nevertheless, experience of several countries shows that inflation targeting is capable of delivering good results. an obvious advantage of a fixed - rate regime is that compliance can be monitored very directly and unambiguously in real time ; and, in the currency board version, the regime operates by automatic mechanisms rather than by the discretion of a central bank. it may, however, result in a less stable inflation rate,