mohamed s fofana : sierra leone stock exchange – developing the country ’ s financial sector opening remarks by mohamed s fofana, deputy governor of the bank of sierra leone and chairman of the stock exchange technical committee, at the inauguration ceremony of the sierra leone interim stock exchange, freetown, 27 july 2007. * * * your excellency, the president honourable vice president my lord chief justice your excellencies, members of the diplomatic corp hon minister of finance other cabinet ministers mr governor mr secretary to the president and other senior civil servants heads of financial institutions colleague setc members distinguished members of the private sector ladies and gentlemen it is my singular privilege and honour to chair this occasion. i must confess that i only agreed to perform this function under pressure from my colleagues of the stock exchange technical committee, who insisted that as chair of that committee, i am under obligation to chair this ceremony. my personal inclination was that some more distinguished personality than myself should assume this role. it is not common that such a galaxy of distinguished personalities would converge on the bank. when this happens, it is a clear indication that something out of the ordinary is in the offing, as is clearly the case today. your excellency, the inauguration of the sierra leone stock exchange, which you are about to perform, is a unique occasion in every sense. not only is this the first such institution to be established in this country, but it also constitutes the first major visible sign of the formal commencement of organised capital market operations in sierra leone. this is a landmark in our financial history as we take a crucial step towards the further extension and deepening of our financial sector, which up till now largely consists of a money market. while this occasion is significant in its own right, i would like to stress that it is part of a process, rather than an event. from this perspective, it is simply the outcome of all the planning that has taken place in the context of deliberations in the stock exchange technical committee, work done by the capital market unit of the bank, and the inputs of local and foreign consultants, especially for the preparation of legal documents for the establishment of the capital market in general, and the stock exchange in particular. sensitisation of various parties, including our parliament, the press, representatives of the business community and the university has been undertaken, and will continue on a wider scale. consultations have been held with some institutions in the public and private sectors to forge operational links in further

, but when inflation expectations over the longer - term — the next 5 to 10 years — begin to rise, it may indicate that consumers and businesses have less confidence in the fed ’ s ability to address higher inflation and return it to the federal open market committee ’ s ( fomc ) goal of 2 percent. if expectations move significantly above our 2 percent goal, it would make it more difficult to change people ’ s perceptions about the duration of high inflation and potentially more difficult to get inflation under control. as we see surveys like the michigan survey report higher longer - term inflation expectations, we need to pay close attention and continue to use our tools to address inflation before these indicators rise further or expectations of higher inflation become entrenched. as i mentioned earlier, one force driving inflation is the extremely tight labor market. the benefits from a tight labor market are easy to see — the u. s. economy continued to add jobs at a pace of 400, 000 per month for the past three months, which is remarkable considering the low number of people looking for work. today, most people who want to work can find a job, and wages and salaries have risen faster than they have in decades. even with these gains, wages have not kept pace with inflation, which has - 3made it much more difficult for many workers to make ends meet in the face of soaring housing, energy, and food costs. job creation signals strong labor market demand, particularly in the current environment, with a large number of available jobs and fewer job seekers. in addition, the tightness of the labor market is exacerbated by a labor force participation rate that remains far below the pre - pandemic benchmark, representing millions of workers sitting on the sidelines. many of these are early retirees, some incentivized to retire during the pandemic, and those with family caregiving challenges including very high costs for childcare. while the strong job market has brought some of these workers back into the workforce, it seems that many are still waiting or may not return, meaning that labor shortages will likely persist in many sectors of the economy. i ’ ve laid out many of the challenges, so now let me talk about what the federal reserve is doing to get inflation under control. in the face of inflation that continues to be much too high and in light of the recent high readings, the fomc raised the federal funds rate by 75 basis points at our most recent meeting last week. that