Given these developments, the baseline scenario in this Report assumes that GDP will grow between 1.25 and 2.25 percent in 2016, less than was expected in December, and in 2017 it will grow between 2 and 3 percent (table 2). This implies that the economy will keep growing below its potential for the better part of the forecast horizon, so that a further increase in the output gap is projected. Just for refreshment, let me remind you that in the Monetary Policy Report of September last year we included several boxes that reflected our new estimate for trend growth (i.e. the medium-term growth rate) and potential growth – the non-acceleratinginflation rate of growth. Estimates remain as we communicated then: about 3.5 percent for trend growth and around 3 percent for potential growth. The labor market has been strikingly resilient, with persistently low unemployment rates and strong growth in salaried employment in most of 2015. Most recently, however, the latter has tended to decelerate, which along with other indicators in the same direction suggests that this market could be weakening (figure 4). About inflation, no big changes are foreseen from December. Incoming data confirm that it will gradually converge to 3 percent, after remaining above 4 percent during the first half of 2016. The better behavior of some components not included in the CPIEFE will help speed up this convergence. Thus, by December this year we expect inflation to be at 3.6 percent, two tenths of a point less than what we thought in December.
Ravi Menon: The Institute of Banking and Finance at forty Welcome remarks by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Chairman of the Institute of Banking and Finance, at the Institute of Banking and Finance 40th Anniversary Dinner, Singapore, 10 June 2014. *  *  *  Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Pioneers of IBF, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, On behalf of the Council and staff of IBF, let me welcome you to IBF’s 40th anniversary dinner. IBF is where it is today because of what previous generations of Council members and staff, industry practitioners and training providers accomplished together. They are the Pioneers of IBF, whose contributions and achievements we are gathered here to celebrate. It is the inspiring vision and tireless efforts of these Pioneers to build competencies in finance that helped create the international financial centre that Singapore has become today. I am delighted that several of them are here with us this evening. IBF was set up in 1974 with the support of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS). Those were early days in Singapore’s development as a financial centre. The birth of IBF helped to fill a critical gap in the training of Singapore’s financial sector workforce. The subsequent growth of IBF has been a story of each generation building on the efforts of previous generations and helping to strengthen the capabilities of Singapore’s finance professionals.