Some reporting and disclosure requirements were extended, reducing the operational burden on banks; and some market risk-based capital requirements that were deemed to have moved excessively during the episode were offset.1 At the same time, fiscal authorities began to provide support to economies entering lockdown. In the UK, that included government guarantees for lending to the corporate sector as well as income support schemes for employees furloughed as businesses shut or scaled back their activities. The size of the policy response was huge. Across the US, Euro Area, UK and Japan, central bank assets increased by around $ trillion in 2020, more than twice their increase in the year following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. And, according to the IMF, by mid-March 2021, global pandemic-related fiscal support measures totalled $ trillion (around 19% of world GDP).2 This is at least twice as large as the fiscal response observed during the Global Financial Crisis. In 2020 alone, average overall fiscal deficits reached 11.7% of GDP for advanced economies, the largest measure the IMF has recorded since they began gathering data. As a result of all of these interventions, conditions stabilised. There was no credit crunch: credit provision to businesses increased by more than 10% during 2020.
For this reason, the Bank of Albania draws the attention on the increasing exposure of debt servicing cost and level against exchange rate volatilities. This implies the need for added attention to external borrowing, in particular to the one in commercial terms, which should be considered as the last option in the list of possible financing resources. 4.3 Further rationalisation of the selection process of public investments The selection process of public investments has improved considerably over the last years. This is realised, amid others, through the rationalisation of non-budgeted public commitments, the disciplining of several-years-long projects, and the improvement of selection mechanisms. Nevertheless, the Bank of Albania deems that there is still room for improvement. The application of a formal cost-profit analysis for public investments in certain fields, such as health and education, culture, defence or various social programmes may be difficult from the economic standpoint, even problematic from the ethic one. Nevertheless, the selection process of other public investments, in particular those in infrastructure, may be further improved, through the formalisation of the process and the standardisation of assessment techniques for the economic profitability provided by alternative projects. This would be another positive step to increase the efficiency of the Albanian public finances and support the stable and long-term growth of our economy. 4 .4 Budget implementation pattern throughout the year The uneven distribution of expenditures and public borrowing has been and remains a problem in 4/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  the Albanian public finances.