plays a key role in this regard. the good financial health of our banking system and the progressive improvement of liquidity conditions and risk premiums in domestic and foreign financial markets are encouraging developments. the easing of monetary conditions and the liquidity injections by the bank of albania have supported and will further support this process. however, the reactivation of credit activity remains a challenging goal, which would require encouragement of the final demand and generation of business plans valid for bank financing, reduction of real and perceived risk in the economy, review of development strategies and commercial banks ’ lending policies, as well as reduction of cost and non - cost elements in lending. all these factors are envisaged to gradually improve throughout the year ; however, they will remain far from the pre - crisis levels. bank of albania ’ s monetary policy will continue to be prudent, chiefly oriented towards achievement of inflation target. the recent upward inflation trend might have been motivated by temporary - action and limited - intensity supply factors. the bank of albania has envisaged that the exceeding of 4 percent inflation rate will be for a short period of time and will not be followed by steady inflationary pressures. our projections show that consumer price inflation will fall gradually towards the 3 percent targeted rate during 2010. however, we remain committed to taking all appropriate steps to ensure this performance and meet our legal mandate for price stability in the economy.

2008 is leaving and a new year is coming now. like the majority of various world economies, even our country is in front of many uncertainties. i would not like to overlook the domestic factors, but however, what is currently considered as the hottest issue, has to do with the overall global environment. for a long time from now, various agencies, and national and international institutions have forecasted a year of world contracted overall production. it would be utopian, and to a certain extent a lack of prudence, if we think that our economy would be slightly or not at all affected by global crisis. though albania is a small economy, it is open, with numerous relations for exchanging goods and financial funds. i have emphasized in my public presentations that all the actors should be prepared for harder days. in light of this i would like to notify you of a number of statements, findings or actions that we ( i mean the bank of albania and the banking system ) are going to carry out in the coming months. 1. based on the latest analysis of the country ’ s economic and financial developments and on inflation forecasts for two forthcoming years, i would like to emphasise that there is a good anchoring of inflationary expectations around the bank of albania ’ s 3 percent target. latest developments and information suggest that risks balance to future inflation is shifted to downward trend, creating space for manoeuvring in the near future. 2. based on recent empirical studies of the bank of albania, it comes out that the relation of credit to economy with the country ’ s economic growth is positive and relatively strong. so, the credit growth leads to maintaining current paces of the country ’ s economic activity. in the recent years credit to economy has eclipsed the contribution of the public sector to generating and using financial funds, also based on a long process of the country ’ s fiscal consolidation. this process of more effective usage of funds impacts on increasing the efficiency and the economic growth. a contraction of credit to economy carries over the risk of reverse action, of eclipsing the credit to economy contribution from the public sector ’ s spending. in this sense, being aware of all the difficulties ahead, i would insist once more on my request to you to continue to keep credit to economy paces. 3. further to my previous requests, i would once again require from you to be more active in the money market, in the interbank market and in securities market. the bank of albania has repeated