In the United States, since May 2013, given the prospects for economic recovery, the Federal Reserve had been suggesting the possibility that it might start reducing the pace of its large-scale asset purchases – known as “tapering”, in view of the prospect that the size of asset purchases would gradually be reduced – by end-2013.
That was your contribution to overcoming the challenges posed by the European sovereign debt crisis. And now we are facing another major challenge – in Germany, Europe and worldwide. 3 Economy activity I’m sure everyone in this room was horrified by the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops almost four weeks ago. Conditions in the country have since evolved into a humanitarian crisis.