Øystein Olsen: The economic outlook Address by Mr Øystein Olsen, Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), to invited foreign embassy representatives, Oslo, 29 March 2011. The address is based on the assessments presented at Norges Bank’s press conference following the Executive Board’s monetary policy meeting on 16 March, Monetary Policy Report 1/11 and previous speeches. Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. *  *  *  Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am happy to continue the tradition of my predecessor by inviting you to Norges Bank to discuss economic developments in Norway. Economic trends During the past few weeks, the world’s attention has been focused on the sufferings caused by the earthquake in Japan, as well as escalating political unrest in Middle East countries. The economic impact of these events is still uncertain. Apart from these, the economic and financial news of the past year has, on balance, been positive. The global recovery has gained strength, even though uncertainties persist. A common feature of the countries that fared well through the financial crisis was that they had kept their house in order. Norway falls into this group, although our abundant natural resource wealth puts us in a unique and favourable position. Against this backdrop, I would like to comment on our experience with implementing the prevailing frameworks for monetary and fiscal policy. Today we can look back at ten years of inflation targeting and the fiscal rule.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Extending the boundaries in the new financial landscape Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the 10th Malaysian Banking, Finance & Insurance Summit: "Liberalisation and Consolidation of Malaysian Banking & Finance Sector: Enhancing Competitiveness & Resilience of Our Economy", Kuala Lumpur, 9 June 2006. *  *  *  This decade has become one of the most dynamic periods in the development of our financial sector. We have seen the dramatic transformation of the financial structure to becoming increasingly more diversified, the industries becoming more consolidated and rationalized, and the system becoming more internationally integrated. We have also seen the financial system transition into a more competitive environment in which the institutional arrangements are more deregulated and liberalised. The financial infrastructure has also evolved with fundamental changes to support this transformation. Finally, the regulatory and supervisory approaches have also advanced to becoming more principled and risk-based to improve the functioning and stability of the financial system. The financial transformation has taken place in an environment of economic stability. Malaysia 's economic performance has been characterized by sustained high quality growth and stable fundamentals. The underlying growth in the Malaysian economy has been solid. Malaysia has benefited from both the favourable external environment and the strong domestic demand. Malaysia has also benefited from the globalization of production with the geographical relocation of the production chain by an increasing number of both multi-national and local corporations across the Asian region.