Let me start with the second of these roles, namely, ensuring the efficiency and stability of financial markets and the financial system. As has become clear during the recent turmoil in global financial markets, liquidity provision by central banks plays a significant role in stabilizing financial markets.
With the increase in the volume and complexity of cross-border flows of funds, coordination among central banks in their performance of this role is essential. Behind the coordinated provision of funds by central banks in December, which I have already mentioned, there lay discussion among central banks and the attainment of a consensus about the economic situation and measures to alleviate it.