That means making sure we can rely on having good and effective payment systems. This is the moment when speakers usually introduce their metaphors. And, in the Netherlands, these are often metaphors involving water. Water that has to flow, and rivers that have to be channelled. And then the dikes that have to be built.
The Business and Finance Outlook that the OECD is launching today promises to provide analysts and policymakers with an additional tool that offers distinctive but complementary perspectives with respect to other established, useful and time-honoured outlooks and reports, such as the OECD Economic Outlook, on which I spent so many hours over the years in this very location, with colleagues I will always remember with nostalgia and affection.