far economic activity performance and projections for 2013 support the outlook for positive economic growth close to the previous year ’ s figure. foreign demand is expected to contribute positively to albania ’ s economic growth, but this contribution is expected to be lower due to unfavourable developments in trading partner countries and relatively low diversification of albanian exports. private demand is also expected to be positive, taking advantage of monetary stimulus growth and domestic savings utilization. finally, the public sector is also expected to provide a positive stimulus. despite the positive growth, the economic activity in albania is expected to remain below its potential during the current year and the demand - side inflationary pressures are expected to remain low during this time horizon. the bank of albania deems that with a 90 % probability, the annual inflation as to four quarters ahead is forecasted to fluctuate within the 0. 8 – 3. 8 % band. low annual inflation rates and forecast for their continuation over the monetary policy time horizon dictate the maintaining and strengthening of the stimulating monetary policy over the next four quarters. * * * considering the information summarised above, the supervisory council deems that consumer price pressures in albania remain weak along the monetary policy time horizon and have shifted downward during the last months. concluding, the supervisory council decided to lower the key interest rate by 0. 25 percentage points, to 3. 75 %. this decision aims to create appropriate monetary conditions to meet the medium - term inflation target. the easing of monetary conditions keeps the short - term financial market interest rates low, encouraging the activity and decreasing the related liquidity trading premia. by lowering the financing costs, the bank of albania aims to increase consumer loans and investments in the economy. this transmission mechanism promotes the aggregate demand, and under current circumstances, creates appropriate conditions for meeting the medium - term inflation target. bis central bankers ’ speeches

better understand the risks they face, we tailored our rule for these institutions to take account of differences in size, complexity, and business models. we specifically exempted community banking organizations with $ 10 billion or less in total assets from the requirement that they run their own stress tests as those institutions cannot reasonably be expected to have the resources that larger banks devote to stress testing. 11 benefits and challenges of stress testing as already noted, stress testing has a number of important benefits as a supervisory tool. from a microprudential perspective, the ccar provides a structured means for supervisors to assess not only whether banks hold enough capital, but also whether banks are able to rapidly and accurately determine their risk exposures, an essential element of effective risk management. the cross - firm nature of the stress tests also helps supervisors identify outliers – both in terms of results and practices – that can provide a basis for further, more targeted reviews. from a macroprudential perspective, the use of a common scenario allows us to learn how a particular risk or combination of risks might affect the banking system as a whole – not just individual institutions. this experience with stress testing has indeed been very useful for our efforts to better monitor and evaluate potential systemic risks. for example, in our macroprudential work, as in our stress tests, we tend to rely on horizontal examinations and comparative studies, as opposed to firm - by - firm assessments ; we use multidisciplinary, specialized teams to supplement the work of on - site examiners ; and we have increased our use of modeling and quantitative methods, using data drawn from different institutions and time periods. all of these features are apparent in the workings of our large institution supervision coordinating committee, which provides coordinated oversight of the supervision of systemically important firms. we have also extended the lessons of systemwide stress testing to analysis of factors other than capital : for example, we recently completed a horizontal review of liquidity positions and liquidity risk - management practices at some of the largest ccar firms. like the ccar review of capital planning, this review was a multidisciplinary effort that used quantitative information – in this case, detailed data on firms ’ liquidity positions – as well as qualitative information on liquidity risk - management practices. notwithstanding the demonstrated benefits of comprehensive stress testing, this evolving tool also presents challenges. for example, even as we continue to explore ways to enhance the transparency of the models we use to estimate banks ’ projected revenues and