This suite of policy responses helped stabilize Korean financial markets and promote a swift recovery of economic activity. The equity market bottomed in late 2008 and has since then retraced much of its losses. Real GDP, which contracted at a remarkable 17 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2008 as international trade collapsed, has rebounded decisively.
For the remainder of my remarks, I would like to first review the ongoing process of adjustment across the euro area and what has been done by national authorities, and the ECB acting within its price stability mandate, to facilitate that process.