With this motivation, I would like to talk now about the main characteristics of the period of transition to inflation targeting regime in this country, a period that indeed lasted longer than planned, and about the main issues that we have faced during this period. I am strongly convinced that there are important lessons that can be drawn from the Turkish experience. Distinguished guests, The Turkish economy has lived through 30 years of high and volatile inflation rates and massive dollarization together with financial sector instability, high public sector debt burden and unstable and low growth rates. Living with such weaknesses for such a long period of time has created a strong inertia in inflation dynamics. Besides, in the latter half of that period, the currency crisis of 1994, contagion effects of Asian and Russian crises in 1997 and in 1998, and finally our own financial crisis in 2001 have been among the many events that increased the vulnerability of the economy. All these developments that negatively affected economic and social life, highlighted more and more the importance of price stability as the primary goal of monetary policy and made all of us realize the importance of a transparent framework for monetary policy that has a clear nominal anchor. Accordingly, the macroeconomic policy framework has undergone major changes and some institutional arrangements have been introduced after and since the financial crisis in 2001.
Equally important are the continuous efforts to safeguard transaction security and enhance user confidence in order not to undermine the role of e-payments as a key enabler for financial inclusion. Since there are participants from around the region especially from the ASEAN countries, I hope that one day we would have one card for ASEAN, where ATM cards issued by any bank in the ASEAN countries can be used to transact within the ASEAN region. I hope you will benefit and be inspired from the discussions, debates and sharing of best practices during this forum. I also hope there would be a change in the mindset of the industry in driving financial inclusion via e-payments. On this note, I wish you all an engaging and productive forum. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches