When I opened this conference almost one year ago, the backdrop was one in which the country had spent the first months of 2021 in lockdown, and in which heightened uncertainty prevailed regarding the effects of the pandemic on many sectors of the economy.
In the intervening period, despite the emergence of the Omicron variant, the economy has proved remarkably resilient, and rather than further pandemic-related output losses being our primary concern, focus has been shifting in recent months to the issue of inflation as a potential economic headwind.