Let me begin by taking you back to South Korea of the year 1997. The “grey-haired” amongst you would recall that in the period leading up to 1997, the Korean economy as also the other “tiger” economies in the South East Asian Region had expanded by 6% to 10% on an annual basis.
It is to this end that the ECB, on the eve of becoming the single supervisor for the euro area, together with all the national supervisory authorities, launched a year ago the recently completed comprehensive assessment of the 130 most significant European banks. Another obstacle has thus been removed to the contribution that the ECB’s monetary policy can make to reviving growth.