Later, reserves were expanded to include bank deposits and securities in various currencies. Originally, Norges Bank had an obligation to redeem notes against precious metals, a promise that was printed on each and every banknote. This redemption guarantee applied in principle right up to the abolishment of the gold standard in 1931. In more recent times, reserves have primarily consisted of foreign government bonds, first in US dollars under the Bretton Woods Agreement up to 1971 and later also in various European currencies and Japanese yen. Norges Bank was charged with managing the Government Petroleum Fund when the first capital transfers were made to the Fund in 1996. This was a natural extension of our responsibility for managing foreign exchange reserves. The aim of the Government Pension Fund Global, as it is now called, is to ensure that the income from our oil and gas resources will also accrue to future generations. The principle underlying the fiscal rule is that the real return on the Fund can be used over time for consumption or investment. This ensures a gradual phasing-in of petroleum revenue spending, while preserving the wealth. The Fund is the nation’s family silver. It is no longer held in Norges Bank’s vault, as it was during the period of the silver and gold standards. The Fund is invested in fixed-income securities, equities and real estate across the world.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Collaboration and challenges of the central bank community Dinner address by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Bank for International Settlements Closing Dinner, Shanghai, 29 February 2016. *  *  *  It is my honour to be invited to speak tonight at this distinguished gathering of Governors. In my 35 years as a career Central Banker, it has been my privilege to have been associated with the BIS for 20 of those years. The BIS had in the mid-1990s initiated a move to have a greater interface with the emerging world. This translated into an expansion of the membership of the BIS in 1996 and then again in 1999 and 2003, when several Central Banks in emerging Asia became members of the BIS. Today, almost half the membership of the BIS is from the emerging world. This initiative by the BIS under the leadership of the late Sir Andrew Crockett has proven to be highly prescient given the growth of the emerging world in significance and influence in the global economy. The BIS has evolved to become an international organisation that is truly global. The BIS has not only focussed on the important issues on financial stability emanating from financial systems of the developed world but has also surfaced the issues that are important to the emerging world.