their financial markets to attract investors. this year ’ s edition is to focus on policy and market development initiatives and will undoubtedly boost developments in the regional financial markets. 5. ladies and gentlemen permit me to share with you how the absa financial markets index is helping to shape the policy dialogue in ghana. the 2017 barclays africa ( now absa ) african financial markets index, noted that of the six pillars used in the assessment of african financial markets, improving the legal and regulatory frameworks through establishing the legality and enforceability of standard financial markets master agreements of the ghanaian financial markets could provide a major boost and enhance liquidity in the bonds and equities markets. 6. the results of the barclays survey noted that in ghana, isda documentation ( international swap and derivatives association ) was well recognized but global master repurchase agreement ( gmra ) was in limited use, global master securities lending agreement ( gmsla ) was rarely used and the insolvency framework needed to be strengthened. therefore in 2017, a stakeholder committee in ghana, led by the central bank agreed on key reform measures that could improve the legal framework for the financial markets in ghana. 7. these included the adoption of gmra for repo trading and at a later stage the gmsla for securities lending, the linking of the local central securities depository ( csd ) to international clearing platforms like euroclear and the strengthening of the insolvency framework in ghana. the result of these reform initiatives is the publishing of guidelines for a gmra - based repo trading in ghana, a country annex and country annexes that was just yesterday launched herein washington d. c. 8. apart from being a vital source of secured financing for banks and financial institutions, and a key tool for the implementation of monetary policy, repos also offer a low - risk and liquid investment for cash, as well as the efficient management of liquidity and collateral by financial firms and can be used to hedge or modify the risk profile of portfolios. 9. netting rights and setoffs are generally recognized and upheld under ghanaian law. with respect to the banking sector, the bog will issue a notice to clarify the recognition of netting arrangements in financial contracts in the banks and special deposit taking institutions act, 2016 ( act 930 ) in support of efforts to recognize ghana as a netting positive jurisdiction. 10. our experiences in ghana as a major destination for higher yield - seeking non - resident investors, tells us that access

the global financial crisis. the left panel in slide 3 shows that the parallel shift of gdp to the downside took place in japan. this also was the case for other major economies, including the u. s. economy. although the gdp recovered to pre - crisis levels, for reasons we do not precisely know, it has not returned to the original trends in the japanese economy and many other advanced economies. on the contrary, the german economy, which you see in the right panel, was exceptional in that it reverted to the original trend rather quickly with higher growth rates. the difference may be an interesting topic to be further explored. therefore, the financial crisis was the root cause for japan's ordeal. but the country's problem was compounded by other factors ; namely, deflation and demography. slide 4 shows japan's potential growth rate with a solid red line and its determinants in bars of different colors. the protracted period of deflation that lasted for almost 15 years after the homegrown financial crisis in the 1990s prevented firms from investing in capital, and capital input remained sluggish because the corporate strategy under deflation was to sit on cash. meanwhile, labor input has negatively contributed since the 1990s as a result of the shift in demographics. this has much to do with japan's aging society, where the birth rates remained low and the baby boomers reached their retirement age. as the solid red line in the graph shows, the potential growth rate in japan has been on a declining trend, coming down from around 4 percent in the late 1980s to almost 0 percent before bouncing back to 0. 8 percent recently. what this chart implies is that, in order to elevate japan's potential growth rate, we need to raise all three determinants : total factor productivity ( tfp ), labor input, and capital input. another way of expressing this is that we need to raise labor productivity and labor input in order to elevate japan's potential growth rate. slide 5 provides a decomposition of japan's gdp growth rates into labor productivity growth and rate of change in the number of employed persons. it is quite obvious from the chart that the decline in labor force forecast for the next decades must be more than offset by improvement in labor productivity if the japanese economy is to maintain positive growth. what this chart suggests is that, for a country like japan, or any country with a shrinking population, improving labor productivity is the number one policy priority