The danger of a major and protracted slowdown in global growth, with inflationary pressures only likely to react with some time lag, is indeed very real. As most of you are participants in the financial market, I do not intend to go into any great detail about the causes of the global market turmoil.
We export about 40 percent of GDP, so we are dependant on demand from global economies. Additionally, in determining monetary policy, the interest rate that we set is affected by interest rates set abroad.