The potential costs of the support measures taken – capital injection, asset purchases, and guarantees of bank debt – in the G7 countries together with Australia, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland amount to about twenty per cent of GDP in these economies. 1 Moreover, the consequences of the crisis in terms of job, output and wealth losses, unprecedented increases in public spending and declines in public revenues are enormous. In the end, the citizens of the individual countries involved will have to foot the bill, one way or another. Arguably the most important intangible cost, however, is the fact that governments had to issue an explicit guarantee for systemically relevant institutions, in effect executing a partial government take over of the financial system. 2 Going forward, the world of finance will not be the same anymore. It should therefore come as no surprise that at the national and international level intensive efforts are underway to increase the resilience of the financial system. In recent months, these international reform efforts have included the presentation of many reports and recommendations. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published two comprehensive sets of recommendations to improve financial regulation. 3 Both have been endorsed by the G20 leaders. The public sector has not been alone in issuing  1  The outlays totalled eight per cent of GDP. These figures relate to government support measures introduced between September 2008 and June 2009. Source: “An assessment of financial sector rescue programmes”, BIS paper No 48, July 2009.
Dimitar Bogov: Challenges of countries from South-Eastern Europe in the current economic and financial turbulence in the euro area Opening speech by Mr Dimitar Bogov, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, at the NBRM conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the monetary independence of the Republic of Macedonia, Skopje, 27 April 2012. *  *  *  Dear Deputy Prime Minister, dear ministers, distinguished Governors, Your Excellences, dear guests, colleagues and friends It is an honor to greet you and wish you welcome to this conference, which is a part of the activities for marking the 20th anniversary of the monetary independence of the Republic of Macedonia. The last two decades of monetary independence, the Republic of Macedonia has faced, and in our opinion, successfully addressed many challenges. Our twentieth anniversary takes place in exceptionally turbulent developments of global economy, particularly marked by events triggered by the euro area debt crisis. This means that as the other central banks from the region, we face a new challenge. Taking into account the timing of the conference, its topic came quite spontaneously, and therefore we consider that it will raise interesting discussion of current issues of the central banks of the South-Eastern Europe and beyond.