I addressed you the last time in the beginning of November 2008, which was about a month and a half after the failure of Lehman Brothers, and the financial crisis was growing serious. As you remember vividly, the global economy deteriorated rapidly and simultaneously as if falling off a cliff due to the turmoil in the financial markets.
The policy responses by the governments and central banks around the world to cope with such a situation were also unprecdentedly bold and massive. Thanks mainly to the effects of those measures, the global financial markets have increasingly been showing signs of improvement since around this spring, and economic activity has also been heading for improvement at home and abroad.