***  Resilience in the financial system Let me turn to resilience, and start with households and firms. Here we see resilience continuing 2/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  to improve. Debt service ratios for households continue to decline relative to incomes. The household sector interest burden is now lower than it has been at any time over the past 15 years.
Gross domestic product (GDP) appears to have contracted appreciably in the final quarter of 2012, and the economy is likely  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  to be listless in the current quarter too. This is attributable not least to the crisis in the euro area and the uncertainty it is generating.