I acknowledge the support from the Government, and the strong partnership between the key collaborating institutions in funding and organizing the FIS. This year’s FIS theme improving the quality of cross-border financial flows for better decision making is quite relevant to our circumstance and in the context of the current global developments, which I will shortly turn to.
Although the financial turmoil triggered by problems in the U.S. housing sector has been more international in scope, in particular with respect to other industrialized countries, its effects on the real side of foreign economies appears to have been limited, at least to date.