Since March, the Bank accelerated the withdrawal of the monetary impulse, with greater intensity than foreseen by analysts’ consensus, bringing the MPR to a level within the normal range. This, coupled with the changed external macroeconomic scenario due to the drop in commodity prices, managed to contain inflation expectations (figure 11). While in mid-year we expected inflation to be around 4% for much of the second half, the data have shown inflation hovering around 3%. The propagation of specific shocks has been similar to the historical average, but lower than that of 2007 and 2008. Today, in Chile and in a large part of the emerging world, inflation forecasts have been lowered and the risk of overheating has lost relevance (figure 12). For the same reason, while in mid-year we foresaw that the MPR would end the year 2011 close to 6%, in recent months we said that there will probably be no more increases, an opinion we have reaffirmed in our latest communiqués and I will come back to shortly. But first let me take a look at what is going on in the developed world. The 2008 crisis is not over yet The crisis of 2008 was not a typical recession because it originated in a financial meltdown, whose effects are deeper and its recovery, slower. This we know first-hand in emerging countries. In Chile we had one in the early 1980s.
José De Gregorio: Chile’s approach to external turbulences and threats Speech by Mr José De Gregorio, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, at the “Economic and Entrepreneurial Vision 2011–2012”, organized by the Manufacturers Association SOFOFA and Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, 19 October 2011. *  *  *  I thank the valuable comments of Luis Álvarez, Luis Óscar Herrera and Enrique Orellana. In the past several years we have endured macroeconomic turbulences of unbelievable magnitude, as well as new challenges. The years 2007 and 2008 saw a sharp increase in inflation, then came the global financial crisis and the recession of 2009, to be topped off by an earthquake and a tsunami in February 2010. Today we can say that we weathered this string of difficulties but we remain on the alert, because the threats from the world economy are far from over. These days, our greatest concern is the state of the developed economies and its ramifications on the emerging world and particularly Chile. In mid-2009, the world economy began to recover from the effects of the international financial crisis. However, such recovery featured two different speeds (figure 1). The emerging economies have grown strongly and have had to deal with risks of inflationary pressures and fast credit growth, while the developed economies have recovered slowly. Since the middle of last year, we have stated in our Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Reports that there are many risks still latent.