In particular, we highlight the main economic developments which have affected our operations and policy implementation. The focus of this address is on the main operational areas of the Bank including monetary policy and its implementation, gold and foreign-exchange reserves management, financial stability issues, the national payment system, banking regulation and supervision, international cooperation and internal administration.
Monetary policy This past year has been a challenging one for monetary policy. As I reported in August last year, from the middle of 2006 pressures on inflation emerged, and have since intensified. By December 2006, year-on-year CPIX inflation measured 5,0 per cent compared to 3,7 per cent in April of that year.