next year remains very unclear. i therefore think it is necessary to carefully examine their developments. there is absolutely no need for pessimism, though. the ratio of break - even point to sales, calculated from the financial statements statistics of corporations by industry, annually has come down significantly ( chart 9 ). this shows that firms'earning power has been boosted substantially, and that they are making headway in improving their fundamental business structure to achieve higher profitability. in other words, firms'fundamental business structure has become more conducive to wage hikes, in line with the improvement in their earning power. given these factors, the extent of wage hikes in 2025 will ultimately be determined by business performance in fiscal 2024, which in turn depends on whether there will be greater room for expansion in external demand and business fixed investment. ii. conduct of monetary policy steps toward normalizing monetary policy so far, i have talked about japan's economic and price developments. i would now like to move on to explaining the bank's current conduct of monetary policy and share my thoughts on the bank's policy stance after the termination of the negative interest rate policy and yield curve control. with respect to the current conduct of monetary policy, the bank decided at the march 2024 mpm to ( 1 ) terminate the negative interest rate policy and yield curve control, and ( 2 ) shift to a framework in which it conducts monetary policy by guiding the short - term interest rate, the uncollateralized overnight call rate, as a primary policy tool. subsequently, at the july mpm, the bank decided to raise the uncollateralized overnight call rate by 0. 15 percentage points, encouraging it to remain at around 0. 25 percent. it also decided on a plan to gradually reduce its monthly purchase amount of japanese government bonds ( jgbs ) so that it will be about 3 trillion yen in january - march 2026 ( charts 10 and 11 ). with these measures, the bank is proceeding with efforts to normalize monetary policy, aiming to achieve the price stability target of 2 percent in a sustainable and stable manner. it seems to me that some people may have doubts about the current conduct of monetary policy, as to whether the bank was premature in entering into a normalization process of gradually raising its policy interest rate, and as to whether this step runs the risk of japan falling back into deflation. i would therefore like to share my thoughts on both of these points

systems. we are convinced that these seminars are a firm step forward in this direction. the aim of this webinar is to shed some light on how remittance flows during the health crisis have influenced latin america ’ s macroeconomic and financial stability. as you are well aware, the latin american economic situation has been particularly affected by the covid - 19 pandemic. along with the human cost in lives, the effects on poverty and income distribution have been very severe. the global economic recovery might also be delayed reaching the region, increasing the likelihood that the crisis may cause more persistent economic effects. despite this difficult situation, remittances have proven pandemic - proof1 and have behaved countercyclically in most of the region ’ s countries, assuming a more important role as a source of external financing. this subject is crucial to spain, since it is the second - ranked issuer country of remittances to latin america. some of the topics we will address today ( such as the growing importance of digital money remittances, the role of fiscal stimulus measures in the resilience of remittances and the function of the informal economy ) are key to understanding the behaviour of the flow of remittances in this crisis. undoubtedly, today ’ s event will allow us to better understand these developments and – i hope – 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches to draw some useful conclusions on how to tackle them from the central bank standpoint. thank you for your attention. remittances barely fell by 1. 6 % in 2020, compared with their 4. 8 % decline during the 2008 financial crisis. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches