not gotten the attention they deserve. in fact, the economy has been trapped in a downward spiral of low economic growth, worsening public finances, and social decline. in 2017 the government recorded a current budget deficit of naf. 116. 8 million. for 2018, however, the government expects a surplus of naf. 42 million on its budget, even though tax income has been lower than initially projected. meanwhile, curacao ’ s debt - to - gdp ratio has been increasing since 2012. curacao entered its status of autonomous country with a debt - to - gdp ratio of 34, 6 % in 2010. as you can see, today, the debt - to - gdp ratio exceeds 50 %. the government of curacao started to borrow in 2014 for the construction of the new hospital, hospital nobo otrobanda ( hno ). therefore, the government issued two bonds, totaling naf. 492. 5 million. currently, the financing of the construction of the hospital represents 17. 5 % of the total outstanding public debt and 8. 8 % of our gdp. nevertheless, an additional naf. 200. 0 million is still needed to finalize this project. there are two possible options to obtain these additional funds. first, the government can issue a naf. 200. 0 million bond loan resulting in a higher debt - to - gdp ratio. the second option is that hno directly borrows the required funds from local and international institutional investors, in this case the public debt to gdp ratio will not increase. it seems that this last option is being considered as the most viable one at this moment. however, there will be still risks involved for the government. assuming that the social security bank, svb, will have to guarantee the loan to the private institutional investors, in case of a default by the hospital, the svb will have to repay these debts. hence, this could affect the sustainability of the social insurances and, indirectly, the public finances. it will be crucial that the hospital is able to comply with the financial obligations towards its lenders in the future. therefore, continuous supervision on the hospital ’ s operations will be very important. finally, i would like to present some policy recommendations to address these risks and achieve a higher and more inclusive growth path. the considerable negative effects that external shocks, such as the situation in venezuela, have on our economies underscore the importance of strengthening our resilience. one of

2020 we launched the pandemic emergency purchase programme ( pepp ) with an initial envelope of €750 billion. but over the course of the year, incoming data pointed to a more pronounced impact of the pandemic on the euro area economy and a more protracted weakness in inflation than previously envisaged. so the ecb ’ s governing council expanded the pepp envelope twice, first by €600 billion in june, and then by a further €500 billion in december, 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches for a new total of €1, 850 billion. the pepp was tailored to the specific nature of the coronavirus ( covid - 19 ) crisis and serves a dual purpose. first, it can be operated as a powerful market backstop to prevent destabilising financial dynamics and breakdowns in monetary transmission. and second, it can act as an instrument that supports our monetary policy stance by smoothing out the impact of the pandemic on our price stability objective. these two engines have been activated with varying intensity over the two phases of the pandemic emergency. the backstop engine was the first to be ignited, amidst the financial panic in the early stages of the pandemic. it helped preserve the transmission of our monetary policy to all sectors and countries in the euro area, thereby averting an even deeper economic contraction. the second engine took over when markets eventually calmed and has been instrumental in nudging inflation closer to the path that we were projecting before the pandemic hit. our targeted longer - term refinancing operations – or tltros – were the second major pillar of our crisis management strategy. we have eased and adapted the terms and conditions of our tltro iii programme to reinforce its inbuilt incentive for banks to lend to firms and households. this makes the tltros a powerful complement to the pepp, as they concentrate on the downstream phases of monetary policy transmission – those that work through banks and more directly reach small and medium - sized enterprises, which are most reliant on bank financing. the year ahead : dealing with uncertainty and paving the way for a sustainable recovery let me now turn to the outlook for our economy. the start of vaccination campaigns across the euro area provides the eagerly awaited light at the end of the tunnel. at the same time, the renewed surge in covid - 19 cases, the mutations in the virus and the strict containment measures are a significant downside risk