W A Wijewardena: Central banking nearly six decades after John Exter Speech by Mr W A Wijewardena, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Colombo, 20 August 2007. *  *  *  Nearly six decades have elapsed since John Exter, founding Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (then, Ceylon), enunciated his wisdom on and philosophy of central banking. He did so in a report titled “Report on the Establishment of a Central Bank for Ceylon” which he completed in 1949 as one-man commission on the request of the Government of Ceylon. His ideas on central banking could also be found in his speeches and press conferences during the formative years of the Central Bank. The Report, also known as the Exter Report was published by the Government as a Sessional Paper in November, 1949. The case for a central bank for Sri Lanka has been presented succinctly and cogently in this report. As a mark of appreciation of his work and in recognition of the need for placing a competent skipper on the newly formed organization, Exter was invited by the Government to form the new central bank as its first Governor. Exter is reported to have accepted this offer only for a limited period. True to his word, he resigned from the post of Governor in 1953 and returned to the States. The Exter Report consists of two parts. Part I presents a lucid summary of the significance of a central banking system for Ceylon.
Lars Heikensten: Introduction on monetary policy Speech by Mr Lars Heikensten, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Riksdag Committee on Finance, Stockholm, 1 April 2004. *  *  *  Let me begin as usual by thanking you for the opportunity to come to the Riksdag Committee on Finance and give an account of monetary policy. The committee’s public hearing of the governor is an important part of the transparency the Riksbank wishes to uphold. These meetings illustrate the clear link between the bank and the democratically-elected body in Sweden. Now these meetings are a part of our legislation. As is usual on these occasions, I intend to begin by commenting on our current assessment of inflation and our view of monetary policy. Then I shall briefly discuss events in the Swedish economy last year and the results of the monetary policy we conducted. The current assessment World economy recovering As Sweden is a small country, very dependent on events in the outside world, it is natural to begin a discussion of the current economic situation with a description of developments in the world economy. Global economic growth has largely followed the path anticipated by the Riksbank and most other analysts during the autumn and winter. Compared with the picture we envisaged in December, we are now assuming that international growth will be slightly stronger.