Although the debt market has, over the past 15 years, become a significant channel of financial intermediation, sizing it against GDP it is still a lot smaller than the banking and equity markets, and by quite a wide margin. Furthermore, retail interest, increasing as it may have been, is still lacking by the standards of the developed markets in the US, Europe and Japan. And the further promotion of retail interest, specifically in Exchange Fund Notes, is the focus of attention of our gathering today. As you may be aware, over the past year or so, we made various experimental attempts to attract retail investors to the primary issues of Exchange Fund Notes. On the basis of the experience gained, and subject to three refinements to be introduced to the arrangements, we have decided to continue offering Exchange Fund Notes to retail investors. The first refinement is the introduction of greater flexibility in the selection of specific issues of Exchange Fund Notes to be offered to retail investors in the primary market. Instead of indiscriminately opening up all the 2-year and 3-year Exchange Fund paper for subscription by retail investors, we intend to take account of market conditions and consult our Distributors in deciding on the timing and tenor for issues with a retail feature. Initially, one issue will be selected for non-competitive bids from retail investors in each quarter. The number of issues per quarter may be increased subsequently, subject to market response.
In this respect, I would like to thank Ambassador Maître, the Swiss Government, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and its Bilateral Assistance and Capacity Building for Central Banks (BCC) program for supporting research activity at the Bank of Albania. This 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  cooperation has been a significant instrument for improving our research work and exposing it to academic and international research community. Our cooperation will continue in the future to improve research methodologies and products. We are currently working with SECO toward the optimization and institutionalization of research agenda and research implementation in central banks. These important issues will be discussed in a jointly-organized workshop with all BCC partners on capacity building for central banks, in Tirana in spring 2020. Dear ladies and gentlemen, Our SEE Research Workshop has become a cherished tradition for Bank of Albania and central banks of the SEE region. It is a great pleasure, and we are very happy to see that the workshop continues to generate interest beyond the SEE region and central banking community. The list of participants has expanded to include speakers from academic institutions in the EU, the US and South-Eastern Asia, as well as from international financial institutions. Your participation is contributing to broadening and enriching our network and we hope that discussions will help our researchers to improve their work and strengthen their research recommendations.