the outlook for the non - commodity exporters remains bright, with growth rates of more than 6 percent in countries such as cote d ’ ivoire, ethiopia, kenya, and senegal. the other development that altered many people ’ s view of africa, were the political and security - related improvements. while africa is, unfortunately, still the continent where most conflicts take place, the absolute number of conflicts in africa has declined over the past 25 years. many of the wars of the 1990s have ended, and despite some ongoing and intensifying conflicts in north africa and the middle east, overall africa nowadays seems to be more peaceful than in the early 1990s. moreover, since the start of this millennium democratic governance has improved and institutional reforms have taken place in many countries, be it from a low level. at the same time, business environments have taken a turn for the better. while the starting point was perhaps less than auspicious, it is very encouraging to see that african countries as benin and senegal nowadays often appear among the global top 10 reformers in the world bank ’ s “ ease of doing business ” indicators. due to these promising developments, africa has become a region that boasts strong business opportunities, both for african entrepreneurs and for foreign ones. also dutch firms are increasingly aware of these opportunities. for instance, nowadays more than 2, 000 dutch firms are doing business in africa, ranging from smaller – mainly trade - oriented – companies to major dutch companies such as heineken, unilever and philips. africa is also increasingly important for dutch exports and imports. among the 20 most important emerging countries to which dutch exports are destined, 9 are situated in africa, with togo, ghana and senegal even in the top 5. and, according to statistics netherlands, about 70 percent of our imported roses come from africa, where, by the way, also dutch rose growers are active. certainly, africa works for dutch entrepreneurs! the second reason why i am delighted to be here is the theme of the conference : innovation in finance. in my view, this is a very well - chosen topic. new technologies are changing our lives and our industries. also finance is undergoing a rapid transformation, most visibly in the field of payment transfers, but also in lending, insurance and, importantly, remittances. the advent of smart phones, for instance, has led to the development of new mobile wallets, which makes it easy to “ send money home ” : goodbye long unsafe travels, hello smart phones

so the rose study was based on data on currency unions involving poor and / or small countries. as noted by micco, stein and ordonez ( 2003 ), “ one does not need to be a eurosceptic to wonder whether such findings are directly applicable to europe ’ s single currency ”. follow - up studies ( e. g. rose and wincoop ( 2001 ), kenen ( 2002 ), persson ( 2001 ) ) attempted to correct the rose ’ s estimates but arrived, rather inconclusively, at anything between a 50 % and 150 % growth of bilateral trade. recently, the first studies based on euro area data have emerged. these show that the trade creation effect of the euro has been substantial, although ( until now ) by an order of magnitude smaller that the original rose ’ s estimate ( e. g. micco, stein and ordonez ( 2003 ) ). our knowledge about trade creation effects of the euro is still far from complete and we will probably have to wait another 10 + years to have enough data to draw firm conclusions about its magnitude in the eurozone. now let me move to the cost side. as already noted in contrast to the benefits, some costs have a contingent character. they are tail - events – rather unlikely but with a possibly high impact if they occur. let me focus on two issues : • asymmetric shocks, • arising micro - and macroeconomic imbalances. shocks are by definition something we cannot foresee. asymmetric shocks are shocks that affect only selected member ( s ) of a monetary union. such events are considered the biggest threat to unions ( mundell 1961 ), because joining a common currency area substantially reduces the set of policy tools which could be used to mitigate the impact of the shock. let us assume that a negative demand shock affects the polish economy ( e. g. consumers decide to buy less polish goods and services ). in the short and medium run, this brings about a reduction in output and higher unemployment. as long as poland has its own currency, it can use both monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate demand and reduce the impact of the shock on output and employment. moreover, the exchange rate might adjust ( depreciate ) and thus make our exports more price - competitive. once in the eurozone, two of these channels are closed. first, there is no independent domestic monetary policy which could lower interest rates, and one should not expect the ec