As a whole, our banking sector is well-capitalized, with capital adequacy ratio well above the international standard. At the same time, asset quality of banks continued to improve with nonperforming loans of universal and commercial banks at 8.74 percent as of November 2005. This is the lowest level in more than seven years.
Altogether, these positive economic trends have boosted confidence in the economy, as reflected in an increasingly stronger peso. In fact, our peso emerged as the top performing currency in Asia in 2005. Outlook for 2006 In the light of our better-than-expected economic performance in 2005, we are confident we will be able to achieve our targets this year.