industry, liberalized the power sector, privatized the water services, and acceded to the world trade organization. these are just some of the reforms implemented in the 1990s that have been followed through in the succeeding decades and — if i may stress — more aggressively so in the last three ( 3 ) years under the duterte administration. key reforms from 2016 onwards are expected to unleash more growth potentials for the philippines. among these positive game changers have involved tax reforms, liberalization of rice importation, the national id system, universal healthcare, universal access to tertiary education, ease of doing business law, relaxation of the foreign investments negative list ( finl ), and the revised corporation code — just to name a few. the newly amended bsp charter in 2019 has also strengthened the bsp ’ s capacity to better safeguard price and financial stability, and to promote an efficient payments and settlements 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches system amidst a growing economy and the increasing sophistication of the financial system. all these reforms should support and sustain the currently favorable conditions of the economy, summarized by the four key observations i mentioned earlier. let me expound of these at this point. philippine macroeconomic performance first, solid and sustainable economic growth. the philippines recorded its 82nd consecutive quarter or roughly more than twenty years of uninterrupted economic growth in the second quarter of 2019. this shows that we have managed to sail through the toughest external challenges from the asian financial crisis to the global financial crisis. on the production side, economic growth was propelled mainly by the robust performance of the services sector. meanwhile, broad - based expansion in household consumption and government spending reinforced growth on the demand side. the build, build, build program ushers in the country ’ s golden age of infrastructure, giving additional solid push for the economy ’ s productive capacity to expand further. second, domestic inflation is within - target. after posting successive multi - year highs that culminated in a 6. 7 percent nine - year peak in september and october, inflation has slowed considerably and reverted to within the target range of 2. 0 to 4. 0 percent. this is credited to a series of monetary actions by the bsp that addressed brewing second - round effects combined with and non - monetary actions by the government that addressed bottlenecks to food supply. the decelerating trend in inflation, which fell to 0. 9 percent in september, has allowed us to reduce the interest rate

lessons of the crisis is that we did not have strong enough global standards on prudential regulation to support the integration that had taken place in international capital markets and financial services. it is not my subject for today, but there has been a sea change since the crisis with a massive international reform programme to develop and implement prudential standards and regulatory co - operation. at the same time, however, we must not forget that while there can be very material spillover costs to other countries when things go badly wrong, the buck at the very end stops at the national level. we have strengthened the resilience of the financial system. we have made great progress towards ending “ too big to fail ” and towards ensuring that the risks taken by financial sector firms are truly borne by their shareholders and creditors and not by taxpayers. the eu and international reforms in progress mean that financial firms are much less likely to fail and, if and when they do, the real economy is much less likely to suffer the collapse of the critical economic functions that the financial system provides. we need eu rules to enable and support the single market in financial services. and, though they are not as effective as a framework for open capital markets because they do not have force of law, we need global prudential standards properly and consistently applied to support a global capital market. we need the rules and standards and cooperation between regulators to prevent adverse spillovers between countries and to manage them if they occur. but we should be clear that while we have reduced the risks and consequences, were we to see a major system wide shock that led to a systemic crisis, it is only governments and national authorities that can ultimately provide the confidence to ensure there is not systemic failure. in the eu context, it is worth noting that there is only a fleeting reference in the treaties to financial stability ; it is the references and powers relating to the single market that have been the basis for the eu rules on prudential regulation. to be clear. the point here is not that there is some irreconcilable conflict between the rules of the single market and financial stability. they can and generally do reinforce each other. as i have said, it is important to financial stability in general – and the uk ’ s financial stability in particular – that the single market is supported by strong prudential rules that have force of law. the point is rather that the ultimate responsibility for financial stability – with one major exception to which i will return – lies with