companies face an increasing need for financing. this scenario calls for taking the initiative and introducing comprehensive approaches to bolster this segment ’ s resilience and to incentivize it to extend more financing, which would guarantee sufficient cash flow across economic sectors and guarantee recovery through a comprehensive and integrated approach. in light of all of the above, the cbk had since march 2020 started to use its policy instruments to strengthen the sector ’ s resilience and to enable it to play a bigger role throughout this crisis ; initiating macro - prudential measures and reducing regulatory requirements, thus expanding banks ’ lending capacity to the range of kd 8 - 9 billion. it also dropped the interest rate to a historical low of 1. 5 %, which reduces the cost of financing for entities granted such support and stimulates economic growth. as a result of these steps, the banking sector now has high liquidity levels and maneuvering capacity that enable it to fulfill its duty as financial intermediary. central bank of kuwait - public عام - بنك الكويت المركزي the role of the government : the role of the government takes on an even greater importance amid the current conditions. the lockdown measures caused an unprecedented shock to both supply and demand, this coincided with a sharp decline in oil prices that brought down government revenues. the committee was therefore keen to provide maximum support to guarantee that the economy keeps running, while simultaneously reducing cost to public funds to a minimum, through the proper allocation of resources and reliance on measures that have the biggest impact with the least cost possible. among these measures was drawing up a government financing support and guarantee scheme, which was presented to the council of ministers by the committee on 5 june 2020. government financing support and guarantee scheme : the committee forwarded a proposed government financing support and guarantee scheme to the council of ministers to decide and take appropriate action in this respect. the proposal was drawn up after consideration and examination of 35 examples of such schemes from around the world, and examining the stimulus packages that are being implemented worldwide which come to the value of usd 11 trillion, almost 15 % of gross global product so far. the result of the examination was that supporting concessional financing and guarantees accounted for 40 % of total global stimulus packages. three main elements were found to be essential for the success of any financing support system in meeting its objective effectively and in timely manner. first : banks must possess and have access to sufficient cash flow and

improve their operational resilience by strengthening their ability to respond to and recover from cyber - attacks. at a minimum, mitigating cyber threats would require effective collaboration between regulators and the industry, adequate contingency and central bank of kuwait - public عام - بنك الكويت المركزي recovery plans by banks and sound security practices by all participants of financial market infrastructure. in kuwait, we are in the process of putting in place an advanced platform for effective information sharing about cyber threats that can later be used at the regional level. supervisors in this regard can leverage cpmi - iosco guidance that calls for ‘ resilience by design ’, encouraging to incorporate sound security features in the system right from its earliest stage of conceptualization. this approach will help address the potential cyber compromises that could stem from banks ’ dependence on legacy technologies. to help strengthen cyber resilience of financial institutions, financial stability board ( fsb ) is currently working on ‘ identifying practices to help financial institutions recover from and respond to cyber incidents ’. next year, they are planning to release a toolkit of effective practices that banking industry can use in improving operational resilience against cyber threats. coping with climate change the second emerging issue warranting our close attention is climate change. according to un estimates, around 60 million people were affected by extreme weather events in 2018 alone. and within this year, we have witnessed the damaging impact of wildfire in california, hurricane in bahamas, cyclone in bangladesh and typhoon in japan. thankfully, the issue of climate change, after languishing on margins for years, has finally caught policy makers ’ attention. as victor hugo once said, ‘ nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come ’. it seems that time has finally come for the climate change to receive the attention it deserves. climate risks stem both from climate shocks like floods, hurricanes and other severe weather events as well as from trends such as warming temperatures, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. broadly speaking, these weather developments pose two types of risks to the financial sector ; physical and transition. increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events could pose serious physical risks by damaging the assets that constitute banks ’ exposures. additionally, natural disasters can damage public infrastructure and destroy livelihood, hurting economic activity in general. on the other hand, transition risk stems from the economic impact of a shift to a lowcarbon economy. factors like development of environment - friendly technologies,