How much should tomorrow’s central bank balance sheets do - speech by Andrew Hauser | Bank of England  Bank of England  Page 12  bank balance sheet to provide state-backed transactional money is one of our most longstanding functions. The dog may be old, but it can still perform new tricks! I am very grateful to Joshua Jones and India Rimmer for their assistance in preparing these remarks; and to Andrew Bailey, Sarah Breeden, Shiv Chowla, Rohan Churm, Jon Cunliffe, Rafael Kinston, Jeremy Leake, Amber McAlone, Ali Moussavi, Huw Pill, Dave Ramsden, Francine Robb, Christina Segal-Knowles and Cormac Sullivan for their advice and comments.
Mojmír Hampl: Czechs and Austrians – even closer than they appear Speech by Mr Mojmír Hampl, Vice Governor of the Czech National Bank, at the Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Vienna, 14 November 2012. *  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, dear guests, It is a great honour and utmost pleasure for me to speak here today. And believe me, these are not just standard nice opening words. I really mean it. As if there is anywhere I particularly enjoy visiting, it is Vienna and also Austria as a whole. And as the statistics show, the same goes for many Czechs. More than two million of us visit Austria annually, and the number is going up every year, regardless economic circumstances (not the other way around). This is not due solely to the typical and widespread enthusiasm among Czechs for skiing. Many Czechs simply like Austria as a country. It would be hard for me to find a Czech who does not feel good, safe and comfortable here. And it is no accident. So, please forgive me if I do not discuss today macroeconomic trends, the extraordinary synchronisation of economic cycles in our two countries, and factors behind continually rising mutual trade. Much of this will be surely covered in the discussion. There is something else I would like to talk about. I would like to make a personal comment about the closeness of our two countries.