. 1 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches re - wiring of global trade. heightened geo - economic fragmentation has led to a reorganisation of global supply chains. this will add costs to finished goods and could push inflation higher. transition to clean and renewable energy. the transition process will be capital intensive and costly in the early stages. this could drive up energy prices and therefore inflation in coming years. second, because of sustained inflationary pressures, central bank monetary policy could remain tighter for longer. the fed has reaffirmed its 2 % inflation target, and that it is prepared to hold interest rates at high levels to allow the effects of tightening to work through the system. this means that interest rates could also stay higher for longer. third, weak economic growth. although a global recession is now less likely in the near term, economic growth in many parts of the world is still below trend3. the global economy may not be able to sustain a prolonged period of high interest rates. we have already seen weaknesses in some sectors of the global economy, and a contraction in global manufacturing and trade. also, since the us banking turmoil in march, banks have tightened lending standards and credit supply, which will weigh on economic growth. so the risk of a recession is still there. the " low inflation, low interest rate and steady growth " environment that prevailed precovid may be behind us. more and more investors believe that we are going into a new macro environment of " higher inflation, higher interest rates and more volatile growth ", one that will present different challenges for investors in the years ahead, including us at the hkma. therefore, let me briefly talk about some of the areas that we will be focusing on in the current macro environment. asset allocation strategy with more macro uncertainties, we need to ensure that there is sufficient liquidity in our portfolio to support our mandates. events such as covid - 19 remind us that liquidity needs often coincide with fast - changing market conditions in which liquidity is scarce. for example, during the start of covid in march 2020, and the uk liabilitydriven investment ( ldi ) crisis in october 2022, we saw very wide bid / ask spreads even for the most liquid products like us treasuries. therefore, we need to have a liquidity buffer that is'just - in - time ', in addition to being'just - enough '. to help enhance liquidity, we will be looking at measures such as keeping more

eddie yue : the current macro - financial environment and challenges keynote speech by mr eddie yue, chief executive of the hong kong monetary authority, at the cic forum 2023 & cross - border investment and international industrial cooperation conference, hong kong, 20 september 2023. * * * opening ladies and gentlemen, good morning! it is a pleasure to be here today at the cic forum. first of all, i would like to thank cic for hosting this event, and to all our guests here from outside of hong kong, a big welcome to you all. i am delighted to have the chance this morning to share with you our views on the current macro environment and talk about some of the challenges investors are facing. current macro environment as you know, 2022 was one of the most challenging years for investors. inflation surged to its highest level in decades1. central banks around the world raised interest rates aggressively to try to bring inflation under control. in the end, 2022 turned out to be the only year in almost half a century when equities, bonds and major currencies measured against the us dollar all recorded a negative return. as a result, 80 % of reserve managers2, including the hkma, suffered a loss last year. fortunately, we have seen some improvements in the macro environment since the second quarter of this year. supply chain disruptions have eased and inflation pressure has moderated. developed market central banks are hopefully near the peak of their rate hike cycles. at the same time, despite higher interest rates, global economies have proved to be more resilient than expected. a'soft landing'is now the more likely scenario rather than a'recession '. most equity markets have rebounded as a result, with the msci world index recouping most of last year's losses. challenges despite the resilience of the global economy, we can still see strong headwinds on the horizon. first, although headline inflation has been trending down, core inflation remains high. it is still highly uncertain how long it will take for core inflation to come down to central banks'target. more and more investors are expecting core inflation to stay higher for longer for a number of reasons : demographic changes. in many developed economies, the fall in the number of workers due to retirement and lower labour participation does not seem to be just a transitory phenomenon. continued tightness in the labour market is expected to keep wage growth and inflation elevated in the coming years