some weeks until that part of the portfolio reaches between us $ 3 – 4 billion. as is the case currently with short - term swaps conducted by the bank, these transactions will have no effect on the value of the australian dollar. endnotes [ * ] i thank dan fabbro and jarkko jaaskela for their assistance in preparing these remarks. an australian investor can swap australian dollars for us dollars in order to invest in us dollar - denominated assets. by using the swap, the investor is able to lock in an exchange rate at which the us dollars will be converted back into australian dollars in the future. this means the investor is not exposed to the risk that the us dollar will depreciate against the australian dollar. it is known that the supply of us dollars in swap markets at year - end is reduced by some large international banks in order to achieve a lower ( g - sib ) capital surcharge than otherwise ( fsb ( 2020 ), ‘ evaluation of the effects of toobig - to - fail reforms ’, consultation report, june ). these banks may also reduce their activities in swap markets in response to other factors such as leverage ratio regulations, taxes and deposit insurance assessment fees. for a discussion of the bank's past use of foreign exchange swaps, see robertson b ( 2017 ), ‘ structural liquidity and domestic market operations, rba bulletin, september, pp 35 – 44. information on recent use of foreign exchange swaps can be found in the rba annual report ( 2020 ). spot intervention by the bank has become less frequent as the market has developed, hedging foreign currency risk has become more efficient and as awareness of the benefits of a floating exchange rate regime has grown. nonetheless, the reserve bank has always retained the discretion to intervene in the foreign exchange market to address dysfunction and / or a significant misalignment in the value of the australian dollar. beginning with the release of data in march ( rba statistical table a4 ), additional information will be made available on the maturity of the bank's forward foreign currency commitments ( which includes commitments under swaps ). these long - term swaps will have an impact on domestic liquidity. however, if required, the bank could adjust its use of other instruments in domestic liquidity management to achieve desired outcomes. the materials on this webpage are subject to copyright and their use is subject to the terms and conditions set out in the copyright and disc

on an annual rate. in the wake of the weak development households and companies have become more pessimistic about the future. confidence indicators have been in free fall and are now at alltime lows in many countries. for example, the purchasing managers index has never before been so low. share prices have largely halved since the top levels in 2007. the great uncertainty is also reflected in the large fluctuations in stock market rates. for the world as a whole we are now expecting more or less zero growth this year. growth and developing economies appeared for a long time to be coping relatively well. but they have now also been affected by the crisis. in china, growth slowed down significantly during the final quarter of last year. the oil - producing countries in the middle east and russia have also experienced a sharp slowdown in economic activity. a few years ago gdp growth in the growth and developing economies was on average around 7 per cent a year. now the imf is assuming that it will only amount to just over 3 per cent. 1 the speed of the global economic downturn is unparalleled in modern times and has come as a surprise to the riksbank and many other forecasters. at the beginning of september we were expecting world growth to amount to almost 4 per cent in 2009. in the monetary policy report we published in february we are instead forecasting almost zero growth this year. developments in the world economy are thus expected to be the weakest since the beginning of the 1980s. inflation has fallen significantly in recent months. it rose rapidly in 2007 and up to summer 2008, primarily as a result of rising energy and commodity prices. since then the price of oil has more than halved. this has led to a rapid changeover from high to low inflation. in july inflation in the oecd countries was close to 5 per cent. in january it had fallen to zero per cent in the united states and to around 1 per cent in the euro area. over the coming six months we will probably see very low or negative inflation in some industrial nations. inflation excluding energy and food prices has been more stable in recent years. in the united states, core inflation has fallen slightly, but only from 2. 5 per cent during the first half of 2008 to 1. 7 per cent in january 2009. in the euro area, core inflation is just below 2 per cent. we forecast that growth will pick up again in 2010 the forecast published in our february report assumes that growth