will skip these slides. concluding thoughts let me end by saying that times are indeed very challenging. this is, to say the least, probably the most difficult time i have observed since i joined the monetary board. it is not a difficult time for me ; the difficult time is when my wife says, " do not eat this. do not eat that. " that is the problem when you are married to a nutritionist. but i am confident that, with your help, we can navigate through these challenges. as we make our way out of the pandemic, the bsp will continue to rely on the collective efforts of banks in achieving our primary objectives. rest assured that we at the bsp will continue to foster an enabling environment for the financial institutions under our supervision. this year and beyond, i trust the bap will continue to be a reliable and excellent partner in nation - building and the more difficult task of rebuilding. beyond the numbers and business targets, i hope we can count on your support to bring more filipinos into the fold of the formal financial institution and help them move up in life. by casting a wider net, more filipinos will be able to leverage the benefits of financial products and services. in turn, more filipinos will be able to contribute to economic growth. maraming salamat na inimbita niyo kami dito. 6 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches

in reduced imports in the coming months. in turn, final domestic demand — excluding inventories — was somewhat lower than expected, and continued to account for the dissimilar behavior of consumption and investment ( figure 3 ). consumption shows a somewhat stronger growth, with improvements in several of its fundamentals. one important concern about the economy early in the year was the deterioration of the labor market, in particular the salaried employment drop in annual terms. this was one of the risk factors that led us to accelerate the mpr reduction at the beginning of the year. this risk has faded in recent months. indeed, in the last few months salaried employment has resumed its positive annual variation rates and some of its quality indicators have ceased to deteriorate. among them, an increase in private employment under contract and a decrease in involuntary part - time work are worth singling out. self - employment, although growing at a higher rate than its salaried counterpart, has slowed down and the unemployment rate is now near its levels of a year ago, slightly higher than at the end of the first quarter ( figure 4 ). nominal wages'annual growth rate stopped falling. in june they expanded between 4. 4 % and 5. 0 %, compared with rates of 5. 5 % and 6. 0 % in june of 2016. real wages increased their annual variation, mainly due to low inflation. all this contributed to real incomes, measured by the real wage bill, slightly increasing their annual growth rate, to 3 %. add to this that consumer expectations have improved systematically in the last five months, although they are still in pessimistic territory. moreover, the cost of credit is at record lows, consistent with the expansionary instance of monetary policy ( figure 5 ). unlike consumption, investment remains weak, especially its construction and works component, which has steepened its annual fall from mid - 2016, hand in hand with a drop in housing investment and reduced public investment. investment in machinery and equipment, despite some annual deceleration from the previous quarter, continues to outperform recent years, especially after discounting the non - regular transportation item, thus accumulating a nine - month string of positive growth rates ( figure 6 ). on the external side, a more favorable scenario for the emerging world and chile has been strengthening. the terms of trade have improved, with copper prices above $ 3 per pound in recent weeks. this, in a context in which the price