This dinner, in fact, provides us with an opportunity to meet together and discuss what went well, and  Page 1 of 10  what went less well, in our economy in a less formal environment than that usually associated with discussions on economic and financial developments. Traditionally, the Central Bank avails itself, through its Governor, of the opportunity of this occasion to give an extensive panoramic review of Malta’s economic performance, of what in our view drove these results, outline the challenges ahead and conclude with policy recommendations. This year we will depart from this tradition. While we will start with an overview of this year’s developments and discuss briefly the outlook for 2018, we will use this as a basis for a broader, more thematic, discussion. In recent years, definitely since the European sovereign debt crisis, we have increasingly come to realise that whilst we are a very open economy dependent on foreign trade and investment, our economy has shown a degree of resilience and adaptability that has defied expectations, surprised foreign institutions and, indeed, ourselves too. All forecasters including the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, European Central Bank and the credit rating agencies, as well as the Central Bank of Malta, were proven to have been conservative. One could argue that the comment on GDP projections is a bit unfair in as much as the December 2015 projections would have been based on the information available at that time. Since those projections were made, historical data would have been revised.
Christian Noyer: From Maastricht to the present and beyond Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France, at the GIC / Drexel Spring 2007 Conference, Philadelphia, 16 April 2007. *  *  *  We have just passed the European Union 50th anniversary. It is a good time to reflect upon the essence and future of this extraordinary endeavor. Never before, in the whole history of mankind, have democratic nations pursued and reached, through peaceful cooperation, such a close degree of interdependence, involving, in many crucial areas, deliberate pooling of sovereignty. Of course, the process has not been without difficulties and tensions, many of which are still apparent and acute. Of course, numerous challenges remain and the future is paved with roadblocks which could still derail the whole project. But, for the first time in more than a thousand years, Europe is at peace and prosperous, with democratic regimes everywhere. This is, by historical standards, an exceptional achievement. At the start, EU was built on a strong intuition: by sharing the instruments and policies underpinning economic prosperity, European nations would create an irreversible situation of interdependence and solidarity where conflicts and wars of the past would become impossible. This intuition led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, then, a few years later, to the European Community. Thus in 1957 the signature of Treaty of Rome was the starting point of this unique experience of regional integration in modern History.