than 30 % of our exports going there and with the biggest proportion of foreign investment in the czech republic coming from germany. ( the uk is roughly the tenth or eleventh biggest source of investment for this country. ) but you might be surprised when i tell you that the czech republic is one of the few countries in the world that has a trade surplus, not a trade deficit, with germany. this is also quite unique. but it ’ s not all about the economy, so let me turn to a couple of small curiosities which might be of interest for this audience. i believe some of you use contact lenses, which were invented by the czech scientist otto wichterle, as well as nylon, for instance. the czech scientist jan jansky was the first to classify blood into four groups. the song “ roll out the barrel ” was written by the czech composer jaromir vejvoda, and the new world symphony was composed by the world famous czech composer antonin dvorak. so you can find at least some czech marks in many areas of everyday life. how about my domain, finance? well at least one thing originates in this country. you sometimes pay with us dollars, or canadian dollars or australian dollars for that matter, so you should know that the name dollar comes from the original czech name tolar – tolar – which was a small silver coin minted in western bohemia in the 16th century. now it is world famous. and while i am talking about the traces left by the czech language, i should not forget that there is at least one czech word which has spread from my very complicated mother tongue to almost all languages. that word is robot – the invention of czech writer karel capek. it comes from the czech word “ robota ”, which means unfree and unpaid labour, or corvee in english. ladies and gentlemen, i can only hope that i have succeeded in convincing you that this is a country with a long track record in many areas and that it is not a waste of your time to explore its history, beauties and treasures, be it here in prague or elsewhere. i ’ d say you might find many other surprises as well. i wish you every success with your conference. enjoy it, enjoy prague and enjoy the czech republic. thank you very much. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches

miroslav singer : european supervisor education initiative “ financial supervision in europe – on the right track? ” dinner speech by mr miroslav singer, governor of the czech national bank, at the ese conference 2015 “ financial supervision in europe – on the right track? ”, prague, 1 october 2015. * * * good evening ladies and gentlemen, i am honoured and delighted to be here with you today to share my views on whether prudential regulation and financial supervision in europe are on the right track. my opinions are based on the czech national bank ’ s long and direct experience of supervising the czech banking sector. i ’ d like to emphasise that our banking sector was hardly affected at all by the financial crisis. our banks have consistently been posting high profits in recent years, so recapitalisation has not been on the agenda. this allows me to maintain the necessary detachment when observing current developments in financial supervision. i believe that three major trade - offs are encountered when developing regulations. 1. a trade - off between the costs and benefits of implementation. 2. a trade - off between complexity and clarity. 3. a trade - off between growth and safety. often only the first one, between costs and benefits, is discussed. mostly lip service is paid to the second one, the trade - off between complexity and clarity. and the third one, between safety and growth, is ignored in many cases. i will deal with all of them in what follows. in our day - to - day work, be it the preparation and implementation of european regulations or the actual performance of supervision, we run into the problem of overcomplicated and unclear regulations. the modern theory of law accepts that laws conflict. i believe we reached this point in regulation long before the great depression. we have made no secret of the fact that we believe the weaknesses in the european banking sector laid bare by the financial crisis should be dealt with by enhancing supervision, i. e. its processes, institutions and culture, rather than by adding more regulations or hastily changing the existing ones. yet the regulatory whirlwind we are currently experiencing is far from over. this naturally gives rise to a number of questions. can we be sure that such regulations will not generate even more problems? how will institutions cover all the costs of implementing the changes to all the regulatory requirements, costs which, even worse, are often hard to predict? might a situation arise where all financial institutions have implemented crd, crr, brrd