Of course, I am deeply indebted to His Excellency the President for appointing me as the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. I am also indebted to the Hon. Prime Minister and the Hon. Finance Minister for supporting my appointment and I very much hope that I will be able to fulfill the trust they have reposed in me. When I met the President, he just told me one thing, he said “Do your work in a straight way and do not fear anybody in discharging your duties.” Now my intention is to follow his direction. When I met the Honourable Prime Minister, he laid out his vision for where he wants to take this country and there is a big role for the Central Bank. And in many ways, if we are not able to fulfill our functions in the way it should be fulfilled – in-terms of creating a platform for macroeconomic stability with strong macroeconomic fundamentals, having financial sector stability so there is confidence right through the system – nothing else is possible. That is the first step, to get strong macroeconomic fundamentals, to have the financial sector which is the lifeblood of the country stable, and people within the country and outside having confidence in it. So that is our responsibility. And as I said, because I genuinely believe that nothing else will really take off, unless we are able to do our job well, to fulfill our functions well.
And now there are a number of important things that need to be done, which we, once I’ve spoken to the senior management – it is only forty eight hours since I knew about this appointment which was a bit of surprise as well – so I am not as well-prepared as would like to have been before I came before you, but I certainly will be talking to the Deputy Governors, the senior management and eventually to the Monetary Board to work out what we need to do. And then maybe at that point I will speak to you again, to share with you what we have to do in, say, the next three months, next year, the next three – five years, we need to think through, because as I said, the Central Bank has to really set the tone, to set the framework for everything else to happen. I don’t want to go on for too long and I just really want to leave three thoughts with you as to what the Central Bank, in my view, should be imbued with, what its culture should be. One is clearly, integrity. Two is technical excellence and three is professionalism. I would like those three concepts to be the guiding principles for all of us as we go forward.