are already promising results – for instance to analyse labour market conditions, gauge economic sentiment, predict consumer behaviour, improve the offering of official statistics or detect anomalies and improve data quality. in particular, we are clearly at a turning point with the emergence of large language models ( llms ) and generative ai. these new techniques can clearly revolutionise the way we work with data, by expanding beyond traditional statistical series, developing new types of indicators and extracting fresh insights. but, clearly, we need to understand better how the new models being developed can complement, or perhaps replace, our existing toolkits. we are very lucky to have present with us today, fabrizio ruggeri, president - elect of the international statistical institute, who has accepted to present his views on these issues. third, the amount and type of data mentioned above, encourage us to establish strong data governance frameworks. these are needed to manage the growing and increasingly complex pool of information available. central banks are actively engaged with other public and private entities to make progress on this front. the objectives are to be able to meet growing information demands while ensuring strong data quality. this calls in particular for developing robust data standards that can serve as a common language for exchanging information, ensuring that 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches data are only collected once, and providing transparent information about the data themselves – that is, data about the data, or metadata. fourth, the combination of stronger governance frameworks and sophisticated techniques can help us to benefit from the wealth of granular data available in today's society. these data offer multitude of opportunities, providing central banks with insights that were previously inaccessible through aggregate indicators. however, working with micro - level information presents important challenges especially to protect privacy and confidentiality – which are fundamental concerns for official statisticians and public institutions. i am happy to note that a specific session devoted to these issues has been organised during this conference that also includes a presentation on statistical disclosure control by inexda, the international network for exchanging experience on statistical handling of granular data. indeed, and this is my fifth point, these initiatives should not be taken in isolation as they require close international collaboration. we are very fortunate to have at our disposal international statistical manuals like the system of national accounts ( sna ) or the balance of payments manual ( bpm ). they provide a common language to discuss and analyse economic and social phenomena. but they need to be constantly refined

me now share with you the details of our macroeconomic scenario and the main risks we observe. the macroeconomic scenario recent data for the first four months of this year show activity outpacing our projections. in part, this responded to specific supply - side factors such as fishery and electricity, gas, and water, and part to investment in machinery and equipment, hired services, wholesale trade and some durables. measured in terms of velocity, after significant acceleration in the third quarter of last year, activity has moderated growth this year so far ( figure 1 ). in our baseline scenario, we project that the rate of expansion of final domestic demand will moderate further in the remainder of 2018. this will occur once the effect of the higher growth of more volatile items that have less capacity to permeate the rest of the economy dissipates, like the ones just mentioned. on the consumption side, this opinion assumes that the slowdown of the wage bill — given the behavior of employment and wages — limits the increase in household spending. in response to the traditional lag with which the labor market operates in the cycle, we can expect that the recovery of growth will translate into an increase in employment and greater growth of wages in the coming quarters ( figure 2 ). on the investment side, gross fixed capital formation grew 3. 6 % annually in the first quarter, thanks to the construction and other works component that resumed positive expansion rates after almost two years. plus, that machinery and equipment continues to be the most dynamic component of investment, with imports of capital goods that, as of may, excluding non - regular transportation, continued to improve. this, in a context where business expectations have returned to optimistic territory on aggregate ( figure 3 ). however, some numbers suggest that we cannot be sure yet that investment will be very dynamic, particularly because there we still see no significant change in the execution of large - scale projects. several construction indicators show some stagnation lately, such as sales and shipments of materials and sectoral employment. the last survey of the capital goods corporation revised downward the expected investment in construction and engineering works for this year, as some plans have been postponed. about housing, updated figures from the chilean chamber of construction show that housing sales have remained stable, while the available stock, in general, is still high. finally, our latest business perceptions report, published in may, reports dissimilar views about companies ’ investment plans, with significant idle capacity in some of them,