Gent Sejko: Build your future, be smart about money Address by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the opening ceremony of the Global Money Week 2022 "Build your future, be smart about money", Pristina, 24 March 2022. * * * Honourable Minister of Education and Sports, Dear Chairman of the Albanian Association of Banks, Dear students, teachers, friends and banker colleagues, I have the pleasure to welcome you to the launching ceremony of the Global Money Week 2022. For more than a decade this global awareness-raising campaign brings together pupils, students, teachers and bankers. Each March, the Bank of Albania in cooperation with the Albanian Association of Banks, and the outstanding support of the Ministry of Education and Sports, organises educational and awareness-raising activities tailored to different age groups of pupils and students. Last year, due to the difficult situation caused from the COVID-19 pandemic, the launching ceremony and all the programmed activities in the framework of the Global Money Week, took place virtually, in compliance with the social distancing protocol. Notwithstanding these circumstances, the programme was successfully accomplished. Meanwhile, this year, the physical presence of participants, makes our educational activities more productive. For this reason, I am very happy we are back to normality, and welcoming you, as traditionally, in our historic hall, the Bank of Albania’s Museum premises. The Albanian public and particularly, young people are familiar with the Global Money Week.
In fact, the closure of domestic output gaps – i.e., the difference between actual and trend growth – that a year ago we expected to occur over the course of 2011, took place in the first part of the year. The unemployment rate has fallen rapidly and is now below its historic average. Inflation, meanwhile, has concluded a process of convergence to the 3-percent target. Inflation fears resurfaced during the first quarter of this year, but subsided after the Board’s monetary policy decisions and the changes in the external macroeconomic scenario. We have thus arrived at a situation where the monetary policy interest rate (MPR) stands within a range that is considered normal. However, the events of 2008 still cast their shadow over the world economic outlook. Despite the time elapsed and the economic and financial measures adopted by economic policymakers around the world, we are still seeing the aftereffects of this episode. The underlying problems that caused the disaster have not been totally resolved, and continue to hold back the recovery of private demand. Added to this is the erosion of trust in the public finance management in some Eurozone members and in the U.S., which prompted a new episode of financial stress in early August, and still another one a few days ago. The world economy is going through an extremely complex situation. Certainly, Chile has tools to soften the impact of adverse external conditions.