contributions of people living in rural areas, thus maintained the secondary theme of rural livelihood on the $ 100 denomination. you will agree with me this afternoon that most of us working and living in honiara have connections with c m woodford, the first resident commissioner, arrived in 1896. the protectorate over the southern islands was declared in 1893 and administration of the protectorate was done from suva, fiji. bis central bankers ’ speeches our rural communities. some of us, in our early days, relied on the little income that our parents and grandparents obtained from selling copra and marine products to pay for our school fees and the basic necessities we needed at school. in most rural villages today, the income they got from selling copra still sustains the family and pays for school fees, church contributions and pocket money. hence, it is not questionable that the coconut tree is referred to as the tree of life as it does not only provide income and food but parts of the tree are useful to the rural man and woman for weaving baskets, fishing, building houses, medicine, a form of alcohol beverage, jam and the list goes on. contributions to the economic base at the national government level, successive governments have encouraged rural people to participate in economic development activities through the agriculture sector. copra being one of the key export revenue earners continues to get the attention of responsible authorities in the government and the private sector. in terms of contribution to export receipts, copra ranks 5th highest amongst other products that are exported by the country. about a third of the country ’ s population depend on copra as a source of income. in 2014, copra production totalled 19, 101 metric tonnes or 3. 2 % as a share of total exports. this is a notable increase from 1. 8 % in 2013 in terms of share of total exports. the statistics speak volumes of the level of sustainability and resilient of this sector despite strong competitions from other agricultural products that fetch higher prices on the international market. on the other hand, the relatively slow growth in the industry signals the dire need to clean the plantations which perhaps are ageing, invest in more efficient methods of copra drying to achieve quality output, support local businesses who are currently going into downstream processing of copra and protect our coconut plantations from pests. our new $ 100 banknote now, let me turn to the new $ 100 banknote. to ensure that our new notes benefit from technical advances that have been introduced in banknote

s fiscal rule. michel strawczynski and joseph zeira will examine the cyclicality of fiscal policy in a broad set of emerging market economies, and will analyze whether the dynamics they observe can be characterized using aguiar and gopinath ’ s distinction of permanent and temporary shocks. i would like to thank the organizers, jordi gali and luis felipe cespedes, for putting together this first - rate programme, and yan carriere - swallow and the department of institutional affairs for coordinating the logistics that have made this event possible. i look forward to two days of engaging presentations and fruitful discussions. thank you.