Quarter-to-quarter volatility in both output growth and inflation has dropped markedly in the past twenty years, in comparison with the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. New eras bring new challenges, however, and with inflation quiescent for the moment, public attention has shifted to a different source of potential instability in the economy: specifically, large swings in the prices of assets, both financial and real.
It was considering all the potential financial intermediation for economic growth that, in the present year, we chose for debate in our XXXI Consultative Council the topic: Bancarização da Economia – Extensão dos Serviços Financeiros para as zonas Rurais, (Banking the Economy – Expanding Financial Services to the Rural Areas), believing it to be a current matter of national interest and importance for our reality where the district was assumed as the pole of development.