But beyond central banking, I am particularly proud of the men and women of the Bangko Sentral who have always been generous with their time and resources to help others who are in need. One central banker who exemplified this generosity of spirit and genuine concern for others was Governor Rafael Buenaventura.
When I say that our monetary policy stance is accommodating, it can be confirmed by a number of observations: we have real short-term interest rates which are very close to zero; nominal short-term interest rates are the lowest in the euro area since the Second World War, for example the German Bundesbank never went lower than 2.5%; there is abundant liquidity in the euro area with monetary aggregates growing twice as fast as the growth in GDP.