I hope that conferences like this will help generate a richer discussion about the challenges and unique advantages in rural America so we can develop more creative, effective and direct policy responses.
What originally began as a crisis on financial markets has spilled over to the real economy in industrialised, emerging and developing countries. According to World Bank estimates, the global economy is likely to shrink this year for the first time since the Second World War. For the euro area, ECB experts expect GDP to decline by 2.2 % to 3.2 % this year.