sabine mauderer : introductory statement - meeting of the southern african development community ( sadc ) committee of central bank governors introductory statement by dr sabine mauderer, member of the executive board of the deutsche bundesbank, at the 57th meeting of the southern african development community ( sadc ) committee of central bank governors ( ccbg ), swakopmund, 8 september 2023. * * * check against delivery 1 introduction ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour and pleasure for me to be here with you today. my deep gratitude goes to the chair of the ccbg, governor kganyago, and also to the host of today's event, governor! gawaxab, for inviting me to this important meeting. this week the important africa climate summit took place in nairobi. 1 the prime minister of kenya said : we need to unlock solutions. today, i am here in namibia – that is no coincidence. why? because : climate change also affects our responsibilities as central bankers. be it inflation, be it economic growth or productivity. climate change will also affect financial stability. finally, talking about financing adaptation or transformation, the role of the financial system needs to be defined. before going into details, let me make clear two things : climate change is a risk and a disaster, but tackling climate change also offers business opportunities. for example, africa has a great potential in renewable energy. and europe is looking for business partners. to be clear, central bankers are no politicians and our role is not to set up climate policies. yet, we have to play our role within our mandate. we have the analytical capacity, the economic expertise. we know the needs and the threads of the financial system. as well as the challenges and opportunities of the real economy. so it is our duty to assist in the process of unlocking solutions. it does not matter, whether we are part of the global south or global north. we are all in the same boat. we share our planet and we need to collaborate at an eye - to - eye level, as equals. 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches therefore, i highly appreciate the increasing voice of the african continent. be it in kenya, be it in paris or at the next cop. that is the reason, why i am here today. i am the incoming chair of the global central bank forum : network for greening the financial system. within the last 6 years, 130 central banks and

confirmed. in the same year, lending to the private sector grew more rapidly ( 7. 3 per cent ). lending by large banks, which are more reliant on fund - raising abroad and more exposed to market strains, slowed sharply. local banks, by contrast, maintained similar credit flows to those before the crisis, thanks in part to a greater inflow of funds. the recession is impinging on the quality of credit. the ratio of new bad debts to total lending to firms is rising rapidly : at the end of 2008 it reached 2 per cent, the highest value since 1999, excluding the spike in 2003 when the parmalat group collapsed. preliminary data for the first two months of 2009 show a further increase in the number of customers having bad debts for the first time. the exposure of these customers to the banking system more than doubled compared with the same period in 2008. although it deteriorated slightly, the quality of credit to households remains high. private - sector debt is much lower in italy than in other countries. although higher than in the past, households ’ financial debt is 49 per cent of the sector ’ s disposable income, as against more than 90 per cent for the euro area and about 150 per cent for the united kingdom and the united states. firms ’ financial debt is 75 per cent of gdp, compared with a euro - area average that is about 13 percentage points higher and ratios of 77 and 113 per cent respectively for the united states and the united kingdom. compared with the years before the 1993 recession, italian firms appear to be in a sounder financial position today. at the end of 2007 the leverage ratio, calculated on the balance sheets of more than 50, 000 firms, was about 50 per cent, 7 percentage points less than at the beginning of the 1990s. above all the proportion of financial costs covered by internal sources of financing is higher today. in the eighteen months of the crisis the major italian banks have suffered smaller losses than those of other countries thanks to their limited exposure to toxic assets and strong roots in traditional banking activity, the prudence of the regulatory and supervisory framework, and the less pronounced indebtedness of their customers. for the leading banking groups structured credit instruments are less than two per cent of their balance sheet assets. investments in the most complex securities are a tiny proportion of the total. the capital of our banks, which, in contrast with developments in nearly all the other leading countries, has not yet benefited from public recapitalizations