progress we are currently witnessing will also engender huge labour market shifts. the need for workforce with specific competences is growing, while the demand for some jobs is scaling down, and that is something we as the regulator and you as employers must work on together with the education sector. the burden shouldered by the regulator seems much heavier today than before, because not only do we have to ensure stability, but we have to do it almost on the fly. you, as the representatives of companies and banking industry, must consider investment in technologies from both medium - and long - term perspective. cooperation between public and private sectors in this area is particularly important, and so are personal examples. serbia's position in the digital financial revolution the nbs decided to head economic and social transformation without ever neglecting system security and stability. implementing a mix of modern regulations and innovative solutions, the nbs has been at the forefront of financial infrastructure strengthening and financial service digitalisation for an entire decade. adopting the law on payment services in 2014 and amending it in 2018, we created conditions for the introduction of modern payment methods and for modernisation of payment transactions. some of the crucial advantages of the adoption and improvement of this law are : 3 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches the development of new and innovative payment models and services, and, hence, faster, easier and cheaper payment services ; greater payment security ; increased competition ; greater payment services transparency. the creation and development of the nbs ips system significantly contributed to the rise in cashless transactions, and hence to greater financial inclusion, curbing of the grey economy, and economic progress of serbia. the data on the use of services we enabled confirm that we readily opt for easier, faster and cheaper services : the number of transactions carried out in our nbs ips system increased from around 7 million in 2019 to around 67 million in 2023! in 2024, around 6. 5 million payments were made on average on a monthly basis in the nbs ips system. the settlement of household and corporate monthly liabilities by means of an ips qr code is a major leap in the improvement of the digitalisation of payment services, as testified by the data that over 14 million bills were paid scanning this code in 2023. the transfer service, that is, a fast transfer of money using the mobile phone number of the payee, is currently offered by 11 banks, and 2. 5 million users have access to this service. currently,

• honourable members, you may be surprised to know that almost 2. 0 percentage points of the 5. 5 percent inflation outcome at july end was driven by higher kava prices. even though kava constitutes only 2. 5 percent of our consumer price index ( cpi ) basket, it contributed substantially to the inflation out - turn. as a result, while yaqona farmers benefitted from the high prices, kava consumers had to fork out significantly more for their favourite brown label drink as prices almost doubled by july and rose three - fold by january this year. • for those of us who don ’ t drink kava, our inflation was effectively around 3 percent. external stability • as a small open economy dependent on imports of a variety of goods such as medicine, food, fuel, machinery, etc. we need to maintain a sufficient level of foreign reserves otherwise there will be pressures on our exchange rate. • the international monetary fund has set a benchmark on the level of foreign reserves which states that it should be sufficient to cover 3 months of import. • for fiji, we like to build in an additional buffer above this benchmark as we are prone to natural disasters, which can affect our export sector including tourism as well as external shocks which can significantly increase our import bill, and in turn significantly impact our foreign reserves. • honourable members, i am pleased to inform that in regards to external stability, fiji ’ s foreign reserves remained well above the benchmark throughout the review period. • at the end of july 2016, our foreign reserves were $ 1, 982 million, just $ 18 million shy of the $ 2 billion mark and was sufficient to cover 5. 5 months of retained imports. • these foreign reserves are what the rbf holds in its accounts. in addition, we have allowed a number of non - bank financial institutions to invest offshore. at the end of july 2016, foreign reserves held by other institutions amounted to more than $ 500 million. financial stability • honourable members, it is paramount that our financial system is safe and sound whereby depositors, pensioners, policyholders and unit holders ’ funds are protected. the safety and soundness of our financial system is also crucial in ensuring the confidence of investors and international agencies. • in this regard, i am pleased to inform the committee that the fijian financial system remains safe and sound supported by a growing asset portfolio which rose marginally from the end of 2015 to july 2016 to just over $ 16 billion. this is almost