3 million recorded in 2001. the 2007 inflows were largely in form of foreign direct investment, borrowing from nonaffiliates ( loans and trade credits ) and portfolio investment. we believe that the introduction of economic reforms led to a substantial increase in private capital flows, which regrettably, we have not been able to capture on a regular basis due to budgetary constraints. mr. chairman, history has taught us that high volatility in private capital flows, if not properly monitored and managed, can induce financial and macro - economic instability in the domestic economy. evidence from south east asia indicates that capital flows engendered a financial crisis in that region in 1997 and 1998. in light of this evidence, the results of the foreign private investment and investor perception survey are intended to assist the government to effectively monitor private capital flows. accurate and reliable data on private capital investment will be helpful in understanding recent developments in the zambian economy. better information on investor perceptions will assist government in designing policies that will attract more investment into our economy. further, the results of the survey should prove useful to the private sector and other stakeholders. on the whole, the importance of timely and reliable information on capital flows in the design of appropriate policy responses by government and thus enhancing macroeconomic stability can hardly be overemphasised. adequate and consistent information on capital flows will also greatly improve balance of payments statistics for zambia and serve as an early warning system for government on potential international financial crises and other external shocks. mr. chairman, zambia, like many other developing countries, has inadequate capacity to collect, analyse and disseminate data and information on foreign private capital investment. compared with other countries in the african sub - continent, zambia has serious gaps with respect to data on foreign private capital investment. for instance, while we are now at the second phase of the survey, uganda, tanzania and malawi are in the sixth, fourth and third phases, respectively. this only reveals to us the critical need to conduct this enterprise survey more regularly. to this end, i wish to direct that, as a way forward, the balance of payments statistics committee conducts this survey annually. the bank of zambia, in collaboration with government and other balance of payments statistical committee member institutions will do everything possible to ensure that the collection of this vital information is done on an annual basis. accordingly, it is my hope that participants at this workshop will appreciate the importance of this survey and find the results useful. distinguished guests, i am

seeing the news out of japan, that, you know, japan seems to be able to keep out of deflation, which they haven ’ t for a long time. even europe seems to be eeking some growth out. do – do you think everybody ’ s going to be doing better or is this just a blip? president dudley : well, i think that – a couple of things. just let me touch on the u. s. first. one thing that ’ s 1 / 13 bis central bankers'speeches interesting is post - election you ’ ve seen a pretty big improvement in household and business confidence, especially business confidence among smaller businesses. now it ’ s hard to say how much weight to put on that because historically consumer confidence goes up and down, and it doesn ’ t just necessarily feed into consumer spending. but the increase in business confidence is quite striking, especially for smaller businesses. and so one of the big open questions that we ’ re going to be assessing over the next few months is : is that improvement in animal spirits, so to speak, going to actually feed through and lead to more spending? so, i think where a year or two ago, i think our anxieties were more about the risks to growth to the downside, so as that – well, a year ago, we were worried about events in china, we were worried about uncertainties about europe. i think now the balance of risk is gradually shifting, where the possibility is that growth could actually be stronger than expected, rather than weaker than expected. the markets expect fiscal stimulus out of this administration. that ’ s another factor that probably will over time tilt the equation more to the upside. but on fiscal policy, it ’ s really hard to factor into your forecast at this point because we don ’ t know what it is, how big it is, or when it will happen. other than that, we have it completely nailed down. so, it ’ s really hard to sort of put that into your forecast. and so the way i think about the fiscal policy outlook is that we ’ re probably going to get some fiscal stimulus at some point. and so that ’ s just another factor that maybe tilts the risk to the economy a little bit to the upside. maureen o ’ hara : so, bill, how about we think a little bit more broadly. you talked about where – it looks like interest rates are going up, at least that ’ s what, you know …