To close my welcome remarks I would like to mention that thirty years ago, under the strong encouragement of Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, a major project was finalized in the Bank of Italy with the drafting of our White Paper on the Payment System.
The strength of exports relative to domestic demand has seen saving outstrip investment in most of these economies – even in the case of China, where investment growth has been very strong. Accordingly, we have the ironic situation whereby a range of developing countries are (in net terms) the providers of capital to some of the world’s most developed economies.