• • • •  The financial sector reforms since the early 1990s could be analytically classified into two phases. 1 The first phase - or the first generation of reforms - was aimed at creating an efficient, productive and profitable financial sector which would function in an environment of operational flexibility and functional autonomy.
It has been renewed three times— most recently for five years until the end of 2006. Today, both the Bank of Canada and the European Central Bank are working to strengthen the economies in their jurisdictions. We both want to promote stable growth and rising living standards. And, importantly, we agree that promoting low and stable inflation is the best means to those ends.