Others, facing more severe liquidity pressures, may seek to undertake voluntary rescheduling or rollover of debt by bringing together all or some of their major creditors, as in the cases of Korea and Brazil. Those facing unsustainable debt positions may seek to negotiate market-based write-downs of their debt, as in the cases of Ukraine, Pakistan and Ecuador. And in yet another set of cases, a country may find it necessary to impose a temporary timeout on payments to all creditors, to give themselves some breathing space to address macroeconomic or co-ordination problems. The decision on exercising any of these options must rest with the debtor country. The role of the official sector is to ensure that the full menu of financing options is made known and available to the debtor, from which it then chooses. This menu should include both the easier options – such as raising new private sector money – as well as the harder ones – such as suspending payments. Each of these options is backstopped by limits on IMF lending, so that the "pure bail-out" option is heavily circumscribed. Indeed, it is this backstop which helps provide the incentive for creditors and debtors to seek alternative, market-based solutions sooner. The IMF should stand ready to assist countries, whichever of these options debtors choose to exercise, provided the appropriate prior conditions are satisfied.
Ardian Fullani: The importance of consumer confidence indicators Speech by Mr Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the Press Conference on Publication of Business and Consumer Confidence Surveys, Tirana, 16 February 2009. *  *  *  Distinguished participants, We are holding this meeting to announce business and consumer survey results. These surveys represent an important long-run project of the Bank of Albania. Starting from today, the Bank of Albania will quarterly publish them, together with supporting materials for the user, including a publication schedule, the methodology applied for their compilation and the relevant questionnaires. Considering this day as a special one, I avail myself of the opportunity to share some ideas with you on the importance of confidence indicators, their methodology and the significance the Bank of Albania has given to this project. The publication of business and consumer confidence indicators is an important moment for enhancing Bank of Albania’s transparency. For some years on end, these indicators have been produced and made use of by Bank of Albania’s experts and by its decision-making structures, but now it is just the time to share this useful product with potential users of all levels. I would like to highlight that the results obtained from the processing of businesses’ and consumers’ answers are totally independent of and not influenced by the Bank of Albania, by economic, political and social conjunctures at home and abroad.