banks, thereby enhancing banks ’ lending capacity. the above would set in motion a virtuous circle for the economy and the banking system and create the necessary conditions for investment financing and a return to sustainable growth. if consolidating confidence is a sine qua non for the above, i. e. for the increase of both domestic and total investment, greece must also take full advantage of the possibilities arising from eu and euro area membership to create a financial safety net that would convince of its ability to cope with any headwinds that could make its financing costs unsustainable, in particular in an international environment rife with financial and geopolitical challenges. ladies and gentlemen, today, greece faces the historic challenge of returning to normality and to a path of convergence with its european partners. a return to strong and sustainable growth calls for maintaining and implementing the structural reforms already legislated, as well as further crucial reforms in areas that are still lagging behind, such as the tax system, public administration, the judicial system, the link between production, research and education, the legislative and regulatory framework, especially as regards the use of land, and the goods and services markets. it is obvious that only on this condition can greece once again become a friendly place for doing business, effectively support productive investment and make a successful leap in total factor productivity. in closing, i would like to underline that, in the long run, increasing investment require an increase in private sector saving ( by households and non - financial corporations ), which, as i pointed out earlier, has declined dramatically, dropping by 11. 5 percentage points as a ratio of gdp, in ten years. the fall in saving was particularly sharp in the years 2015 – 2016, for households and businesses alike. admittedly, the capital controls combined with higher taxation led households and businesses to tap their savings, in order to meet their current needs. 5 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches however, there can be no investment without domestic saving or, alternatively, without continued foreign financing. this is why it is so important in the long run to restore the saving capacity of the private sector. in this context, the development of the second and third pillars of the social security system will not only ensure the system ’ s viability, but will also encourage households to increase their saving and open up a new channel for the financing of business investment. this will enable greece, in a self - reliant manner, to increase its

to small country issues, albeit secondary to large country and large bank issues, at the basel committee. there are clearly routes through which a well - prepared small country can inject its views into the basel processes, often via regional consultation formats. the second commendation, and it is difficult to overstate its value, is the basel committee ’ s and fsi ’ s more recent and explicit adoption of proportionality as an accepted and important part of the framework. this allows small countries to adopt the basel rules texts in ways that are fully compliant with the texts, but very much simpler and cheaper to supervise and comply with. to take a topical example, the bahamas is currently consulting on a basel iii implementation that will require perhaps 10 per cent of the complexity of the full basel rules text. much of this simplification revolves around avoiding model - based approaches, but even the new standardised approaches give a great deal more freedom for small countries to adopt simpler but robust rules. please continue with proportionality, and encourage the imf to support this approach as they conduct fsap reviews. the matter i would ask you to reconsider is the increasingly fragile assertion that the basel committee is only making rules for large, internationally active banks. that may be the basel position, but it is not the imf position when it comes to fsaps. this applies to the basel core principles and the capital and liquidity frameworks. i certainly don ’ t suggest that you move away from making rules for internationally active banks, but please try to remember, ideally not just around the margins, that a great many non - member countries will strive to adopt the basel rules, both for international and domestic banks. 3. 2 assistance with rules adoption the second question is, does the basel committee and fsi assist small countries in adopting new and almost always more challenging international rules? your record on this is particularly good, in our experience. that ’ s the whole point of the fsi. we are also grateful that the basel committee, relative to some other international rule - making bodies, allows considerable time for consultation and for implementation of new rules. this conference is an obvious example of part of the extensive assistance given to non - member countries, as is the biennial icbs event. so please keep up the good work. 3. 3 opportunities to engage third, what about governance and use of staff? the bcbs and fsi secretariats and working groups naturally feature staff from member countries, but it is also the