Remaining imbalances may continue to impose modest restraint on industrial production during the early part of this year. Outside the United States, economic activity in our major trading partners has continued to grow briskly. The strength of demand abroad helped spur a robust expansion in U.S. real exports, which grew about 9 percent last year.
The European Parliamentary Week can play a very useful role here as it allows us to learn from each other’s experiences. In fact, there has been no lack of successful reforms in different policy fields across EU countries. Let me take a concrete example. In the area of financial services, the completion of the banking union is essential for improving the functioning of EMU.