customer relationships. in conclusion, i would like to say that, in our opinion, bank financing remains and will remain the primary way of raising debt in russia for many years to come. we are interested in the banking sector enjoying long - term sustainability and profitability. we want banks to be able to meet the needs of the economy in any situation. in the crisis we underwent last year, we saw that banks are able to do so. and in periods of growth as there is now. i wish you every success. thank you for your attention! 5 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches

gradually regulatory measures that would discourage rapid increase in lending, encourage banks to lend more in domestic currency and increase transparency toward clients on banks products and services. on the other side, the monetary policy has successfully anchored expectations of very moderate growth in the price level and has supported demand for local currency financial assets by offering sufficient positive real return. as the crisis hit, the first impact in our economy was shown on the balance of payments, reflecting the relationships of our economy with the world. the increase of unemployment and the tightening of financing conditions in the neighboring countries of european union were followed by the decline of albanian emigrants ’ remittances that live and work in those countries. while the gap between the domestic and external demand was widened, this was accompanied with an increase of current account deficit and the mounting pressure on the exchange rate. at the same time, the banking sector, which heavily dominates the financial system in albania, reduced its funding contribution to the domestic economy as a response to the increasing demand for liquidity, following the deposit withdrawal from the public and an increasing borrowing demand from the government. the combined effect of these developments affected negatively the real sector of the economy, mainly the business sector. in the first quarter of this year, business confidence index fell under its historic average, reflecting a more difficult financial situation. the latter was also shown by the lower - thanplanned realization of fiscal revenues as well as by the decline of loan portfolio quality that banking sector has encountered throughout the period. in the short - term, the public authorities took measures to lessen the impact of the global financial crisis in the economy. through the significant increase of the fiscal expenditures share designated for investments, mainly in infrastructure, the government supplied an important impetus for the support of the real sector of economy to cope with the global crisis effects. the bank of albania has also been active to provide liquidity in the interbank market, with the aim to preserve the stability of the banking sector and to lessen the expected decrease of its intermediation role. we removed quantitative limits in the size of the liquidity injections through our week - long reverse repurchase agreements, and extended the maturity of our injection operations up to three months. following a cut of the policy rate by 0. 5 percentage points in january and the subdued inflationary pressures at home, the monetary policy paid an important attention to the financial stability, by keeping the policy interest rate unchanged throughout the period. 1 through this policy, we intended to maintain strong