euro area itself – something which is being felt, not least, by german exporters. for another, exports to the euro area are of relatively minor importance for most regions outside europe. last year, euro - area countries imported goods worth us $ 2, 340 from outside the euro area, which corresponds to just under one - fifth of the euro area ’ s gross domestic product ( gdp ). in the first half of 2012, imports from non - euro - area countries fell by 4 %. looking at the situation the other way round, exports to the euro area account for just 4 % of the rest of the world ’ s gdp. if the emerging and developing countries are combined into a single group, the figure is somewhat higher, at 5 %. over the past few years, exports of goods to the euro area have made a positive contribution to economic growth in the emerging and developing countries, but this stimulus is now absent. in nominal terms, the lack of this growth impulse explains only about a tenth of the current slowdown in growth in the emerging market economies and developing countries. for brazil, the euro area is of even less importance as a sales market. exports to the euro area account for no more than 2 % of gdp. with an export share of 10 % of gdp, brazil is, anyway, a rather closed economy. with regard to the currently quite marked slowdown in growth in brazil, other factors are therefore of greater relevance. this significant growth slowdown in the large emerging economies is due mainly to specific, home - grown factors. here in brazil, the deceleration was especially pronounced in industry. one major reason for the lull since 2010 is the loss of price competitiveness due to the appreciation of the brazilian real. another factor, admittedly, is that real earnings in the manufacturing sector have also gone up sharply over the past few years. you all know that brazil is not a low - wage country. as a result, domestic goods are increasingly being substituted by imports. the congested infrastructure ranks as a further structural obstacle to macroeconomic development. the fact that there are said to be roughly as many helicopter taxis in sao paulo as there are helicopters in all of germany is due, if nothing else, to your city having gained a reputation for being faced with frequent traffic jams. logistics experts say that deliveries of goods in brazil take twice as long over the same distance as in china. whether or not the announced government investment programme to modernise the road and rail networks

financial and economic history. therefore, one might be tempted to classify 2012 as an “ annus horribilis ”. i wish to challenge this view. will 2012, with hindsight, possibly go down in history as an “ annus mirabilis ”? absurd, you may think. but on second thought this notion seems less absurd than it first appears. let us not forget that the famous poem of john dryden entitled “ annus mirabilis ” was inspired from major events in the year 1666. a very difficult year, to put it mildly, a year in which the great fire destroyed 80 % of the city of london. the fire spread so rapidly due to the city ’ s narrow streets and the “ interconnectedness ” of houses. the battle to stop the fire was considered to have been won by two factors : the strong east winds died down, and the tower of london garrison used gunpowder to create effective firebreaks to stop the fire from spreading further eastwards. dryden ’ s view was that god had performed miracles for england. the king promised to improve the streets. bis central bankers ’ speeches well, some may say, so it is in 2012. the fire in the financial markets was stopped by the ecb, by the two firewalls efsf and esm as well as by the governments announcing that they would improve the financial system. thus 2012 is an “ annus mirabilis ”. but as you know, miracles need to be acknowledged either by the pope or by the scientific community. so let us check whether a miracle was at work in 1666. and what i am going to say now about 1666 can be understood as a metaphorical warning about what could happen if we do not draw the right policy conclusion from the events of 2012. despite numerous radical proposals, london was rebuilt using essentially the same street plan which was in use before the fire. so the miracle is that nothing similar to the great fire has happened in the following years. the lesson of this story is quite clear. the financial system needs better rules than in the years preceding the crisis. we need a resilient financial system. we need a strong supervision. we need effective macroprudential instruments. we need to know how these instruments will work, which is a challenge for the scientific community as well as for macroprudential policy makers. otherwise, we would be putting our trust in a miracle. and we need to understand the complicated interactions between the financial and the real economy