But even a snail can make considerable progress provided it keeps going. I am told that the world record for a snail is about 16 cms a minute, or roughly one kilometre in 4 days. On that basis a snail could leave here this evening and be in the BIS in Basel in under a year. It necessarily takes time to build an international consensus to move forward on any significant issue, and you need a broad consensus if whatever it is you agree is to have any meaningful effect. And if you look back over ten, or even five, years, rather than just at the outcome of any particular meeting, then the amount of progress really has been very considerable. Overall economic management Let me illustrate this first in relation to the broad consensus that now exists – within the developing, emerging, and transition economies as well as within the industrial world – on the general approach to overall economic management. That consensus can perhaps be summed up essentially as "macroeconomic stability and supply-side flexibility", though that characterisation needs elaboration. On the macro-economic side we have learned – and it has taken some countries longer than others – that you cannot achieve what we are all trying to achieve – sustained growth, high levels of employment and rising living standards – simply by pumping up demand in our economies through expansionary monetary and fiscal policies without proper regard to the underlying supply-side capacity of our economies to meet that demand.
Disruptive technologies and the creation of these assets have potential benefits, the most important being those related to financial inclusion, reduced informality and tax evasion, and the promotion of safer and more efficient electronic payments. However, risks, concerns, and costs also arise. In particular, there is the need to develop technical capacity and adapt informationtechnology resources towards cybersecurity. With regard to anonymity, this can generate problems as it discourages users from working with information under these constraints. Finally, if digital currencies are not Page 1 of 4  Central Bank of Chile October 2019  universally accepted and financially exclude the population less integrated into the new technologies, reputational risks may also emerge. When we talk about the digital economy, we are referring to a wide range of economic activities, and the huge volumes of data they generate. Now there are many new, more timely and granular sources of information, but largely unstructured for statistical purposes. This imposes statistical agencies a new role in data management, which involves the application of efficient and secure practices for data storage, handling and dissemination. As the exploitation of administrative records and alternative sources that qualify as big data consolidates, it presents an opportunity to complement the indicators currently available. Similarly, we need professionals with the necessary skills to exploit these great volumes of information, along with a technological infrastructure that allows the efficient storage and processing of such volumes. From a global standpoint, digitization has modified the perception of distance, reducing the costs of crosscountry coordination.