the project objective was to improve our work practices in the field of banking supervision, statistics, payment systems, interbank market, coordination of eu integration process and financial literacy. more specifically, cooperation in banking supervision focused on implementing major reforms in areas such as consolidated supervision, approval of new regulations and staff training. this cooperation has fostered our relations with foreign supervisory authorities and international institutions. staff capacity building and development in this area was another priority of the project. our institution should take relevant measures to increase their skills for preventing or handling deficiencies or threats to financial system stability. in terms of statistics, this cooperation has led to a thorough review of the existing regulatory framework to completely fulfil ecb standards on compilation and dissemination of monetary and financial statistics. the review aimed to identify items of noncompliance with eu standards and to subsequently draft a solid agenda for comprehensively reviewing our bis central bankers ’ speeches methodology and infrastructure to compile the balance of payments in accordance with eu standards. payment systems constitute another priority of our work under this project. in this area, our practices further improved, aiming at approximating them to the escb practices on payment systems. also, pertinent legal acts and their compliance with the eu regulatory framework were reviewed. cooperation on interbank money market consisted in analysing the experience of other central banks in handling market obstacles and difficulties in relation to the regulatory framework. other useful aspects for adapting, including identification of necessary actions to be taken by our institution in the interbank money market were also addressed. coordination of the eu integration process is another major area that was broadly addressed by this project. thanks to this cooperation, our staff capacities were enhanced as regards the handling of responsibilities arising from the implementation of the stabilisation and association agreement, approximation to the escb standards, and the challenges that we may encounter when albania receives the status of a candidate country and starts negotiations of eu accession. last but not least, financial literacy is of key importance to the bank of albania. thanks to support from and cooperation with the project team, an action plan was designed to promote financial literacy and enhance awareness of market - economy principles across various groups of the society. also, a system for monitoring financial literacy in schools was set up. further on, due to complexity of our work and new developments in the banking and financial area, it is clear that the project has strengthened our institution and has helped us cope with new situations. moreover, the cooperation and communication between our institutions intensified from both

viewpoints, professionally and personally. we do live in a global society, where financial developments take place at a rapid pace. therefore, central banks should possess strong and reliable mechanisms of coordination and communication, which may prepare our institutions to cope with such situations. a proverb says : “ no matter how long the journey is, one has to take the first step to start off. ” this philosophy was made concrete through this twinning project, which along with the assistance in the afore - mentioned areas, was also the first step on the path of our institution to eu standards, as one of the priorities of the stabilization and association agreement. i would like to extend my sincere thanks to the banca d ’ italia and the banque de france for the outstanding cooperation we have had during the project implementation. i commend the efforts of both honoured institutions and hope that the successful implementation of this project will provide us with an example to involve more in such initiatives in the future. also, i want to extend my thanks to the delegation of the european union for its ongoing assistance and prudence throughout the project performance. i am deeply confident that these are only the first steps towards a close cooperation. i would like to conclude by bringing to your attention a statement of mr. shimon peres, who, listening to his advisor, agassi, who was speaking about developing alternative oil sources in the absence of oil, interrupted him by saying : nice speech, but what are we going to do? in light of this, we should think about what to do in the future. i think that the political coverage of this approximation process is important, with which i mean brussels ’ probable acceptance of albania ’ s application for membership in september. this is an important step that would provide additional room for the country ’ s rapid convergence and for bank of albania ’ s rapid and irreversible development in line with the models of its european counterparties. bis central bankers ’ speeches