The number of guarantees approved during the period amounted to 1,668 with a total value of Rls 644 million against loans to the tune of Rls1.6 billion granted by banks under the umbrella of the program, which benefited about 1,113 small and medium enterprises. This is in addition to loans provided by the Saudi Credit and Savings Bank, for financing young people and small enterprises, as well as the Centennial Fund, and Abdul Latif Jameel’s “Finance Program” that provides material support for youth’s projects and training courses. Dear audience, In conclusion, I wish to emphasize that the status of small and medium enterprises in the Kingdom still needs a lot of care and an appropriate environment to perform their required roles in the economy, especially in the field of Saudization of jobs. This important symposium may, hopefully, discuss this topic from its different aspects and provide the necessary recommendations to assist competent authorities in making appropriate decisions for this important sector. Thank you all for listening and wish you success. BIS Review 171/2010  3
And in this area, the most important things we can to reduce the risk of systemic financial crisis are to strengthen the shock absorbers in the financial system, both in terms of the financial cushions available to absorb losses and the capacity of the financial infrastructure to manage stress. In terms of the financial cushions, the challenge is to sustain a level of capital and liquidity that is large enough to withstand a more adverse financial and economic environment than we have experience recently. Here the job of the risk management discipline is to try to compensate for failure of imagination, to counteract the gravitational effect on measured exposure produced by recent history, and to try to anticipate the adverse effects on market liquidity that may come with a shock. This requires a healthy skepticism about models, discipline and care in the face of competitive pressures, and humility about what we can know about the future. In the world of infrastructure, the challenge is not just about the strength of the physical infrastructure, the capacity to handle volume, operational resilience, and vulnerability to single points of failure. Here the challenge is about the softer infrastructure, as well, such as the arrangements for resolving a credit event or the close out or liquidation of a complex fund or institution. The Federal Reserve is involved in a range of important initiatives on both fronts, working closely with the lead supervisors of the major global financial institutions and market infrastructure operators.