Total assets in banks here continue to grow well, both in deposits and advances, with scarcely a whiff of the toxic fumes that are besetting our distant neighbours. Thus, as you will appreciate from these brief remarks, my stewardship of the Bank has not been as negative as some recent press coverage might lead the uninformed observer to believe.
Let me give you a few other strong positives. First, our management of foreign exchange reserves. Our net international reserves increased by nearly Rs18 billion to stand at Rs96 billion in October 2009. That’s an increase of nearly 23% since December 2006.