therefore, the inflation target has not been jeopardised. finally, this measure can contribute to the recovery of consumption, which is necessary for us to achieve the desired economic growth. and that is the third goal – economic growth! dear colleagues, all of us here today know that our job never ends, just like no policy can work on its own! hence, the preserved business confidence and a stable banking sector resulted from the overall economic policy, and this ensured a significant rise in employment amid such circumstances, as well as an increase in real wages in both the private and public sector. only this synergy of the real and financial sector can ensure the lasting success of both! an illustration is the assets of commercial banks operating in serbia of around eur 50 bn, over 80 % higher than in 2012. the synergy as well as trust effect. that there is confidence in our system is illustrated by the fact that fx savings of households rose by over 70 % in the last ten years, while dinar savings increased around seven times. up until ten years ago, the only two sources of investment financing in serbia were a modest inflow of fdis and modest capital investments of the government of around 2 % of gdp. in the meantime, both sources of financing increased fourfold, and we gained two more, maybe even more important pillars of investment financing – profitability of domestic companies and investment loans of banks. for example, in 2014, domestic companies recorded a loss of around eur 2 bn, and investments could not be financed from own sources. since then the serbian economy's net financial result has been improving every year, by around one billion euros on average annually, and in 2022 corporate profitability reached around eur 5 bn. this broadens the base of good 2 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches clients of the banking sector and credit risk is reduced. thus, macroeconomic stability and structural reforms are both our key challenge and potential, and our crucial heritage for the coming generations. heritage is also a unique technological revolution in which we can be the leaders or followers and which brings changes particularly to the financial sector. we decided to be at the forefront of this process, without ever losing sight of system security and stability. i can freely say that today we are at the edge of the revolution that is taking place by means of bits and bytes. the fact is that our payment methods, loan applications, signing of contracts with financial institutions, transactions time, technologies used – are changing

years ahead. this was the picture of developments painted in the february inflation report. what has happened since february? the world economy appears to have developed slightly more strongly than we foresaw then. new and revised national accounts figures have been published for the united states, parts of asia and the euro zone. with regard to the united states, the statistics show that the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006 were slightly stronger than we had assessed. for asia the picture of a stronger development is even more evident. in the euro zone, developments during the fourth quarter were roughly as expected, but the indicators published since then point towards slightly more favourable developments there than was expected in february. at the same time, the oil price has risen much more than expected and forward prices for oil have also risen. we can therefore assume that oil and petrol prices will remain at a high level for some time to come. this of course comprises an uncertainty factor for the economic assessment and it is difficult to ascertain what consequences it will have. the experiences so far indicate that the international economic upswing has been resistant to the increasing oil prices. at home, a considerable amount of new statistics have been published since february, including the national accounts for the final quarter of 2005. gdp growth during the fourth quarter was slightly lower than expected, but for the year 2005 as a whole growth was nevertheless in line with our forecast because the outcomes for earlier periods had been revised upwards. the figures show that exports increased more than anticipated last year, which with hindsight is not surprising, given the strong international growth. on the other hand, both household consumption and investment were weaker during the fourth quarter than in our earlier forecast. judging by the recent economic indicators, developments so far this year have been better than at the end of 2005. the purchasing managers index for manufacturing and the national institute of economic research ’ s quarterly business tendency survey indicate, for instance, that manufacturing activity improved from the middle of 2005 and that this development continued during the first quarter of this year. developments in the labour market have also been positive in recent months. employment has developed in line with our forecast, while the labour force has increased more than expected. business tendency data also indicate that the upturn in employment will continue during the second quarter. all in all, i believe that this indicates that the slowdown at the end of last year was temporary, and that economic activity in sweden this year has developed largely in line with the assessment in the february inflation report.