Looking back at the first speech I gave as an MPC member this time last year,8 gas prices barely featured. Rather the focus was on supply chain disruptions and the potential threat of the Omicron variant, which had just started to emerge as I spoke in Newcastle. Second, the shock was large. Although it has eased somewhat in recent months, the January European wholesale gas price future – most relevant for next year’s household energy bills that enter the CPI basket – rose more than ten times to its August peak. Third, these gas price rises passed-through to the CPI inflation that the MPC targets relatively quickly: in a matter of months – certainly at a shorter horizon than the 18-24 months typically associated with the lagged pass-through of monetary policy actions to inflation developments. And fourth, higher gas prices exerted an adverse supply-side effect on the UK economy, and thus induced a difficult trade-off for monetary policy: inflationary pressures rose at a time when economic activity weakened. Taken together, these characteristics implied that gas price driven volatility in CPI inflation was inevitable.
The efforts based on further expanding the number of universities, technical and technological colleges as well as schools of general education; increasing admissions and offering more scholarships for study abroad and increasing budgetary allocations for promoting health and social services represent a sound strategic option for enhancing the sound march of economic development and will bear fruitful results, God willing. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, The economic indicators observed by SAMA indicate a continuous high inflow of direct investments in almost all sectors, and a deeper and more solid national economy. This, in turn, was reflected by the International Rating Agencies’ increase of the Kingdom’s credit rating and the remarkable interest of the world top investors in the Kingdom’s investment opportunities. Your wise directives have emphasized that the development and investment efforts should cover all the Kingdom’s regions, which were supported by Your regional field visits around the Kingdom to increase growth and investment capacities and expand the economic base. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Inflow of direct investments to various productive sectors is a strong evidence of the Kingdom’s investment attraction and the interest of both local and foreign investor. Part of these investments flow through the Capital Market which plays a very important role in the economy. It provides additional channels for project financing, and, at the same time, it offers to investors diverse investment instruments.