Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: Economic forecasts, measures to exit the crisis, and the Spanish financial system Opening address by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, of the Cinco Días Series of Conferences, Madrid, 31 March 2009. *  *  *  Thank you very much for calling on me to inaugurate this series of conferences at a time burdened with challenges for economic analysis and economic policy. Given the scope of this conference, I shall address three matters of interest to the media: economic forecasts, the measures needed to exit the crisis and the current situation of the Spanish financial system. Economic forecasting has seen better days. Over the past 20 years, all institutions have been projecting high growth rates for the world economy in view of the benefits arising from increasingly integrated economic systems anchored firmly on free-market principles. Nobody could have conceived systemic market failings on a global scale such as those we are currently witnessing, and which are prompting a spectacular collapse in output and world trade. And right now, in the thick of the crisis, it is still difficult to prepare macroeconomic projections. But it is precisely in these circumstances when we most need such projections which, while they may well contain a large margin of error, are of use to us for assessing the juncture at which economies stand.
I have been involved in just about all of  BIS Review 67/2010  3  the crises of the last 30 years. But it is true that the decisions taken today, in the context of the worst global crisis since World War II at the level of the euro area as a whole are of an extreme importance; it is for my colleagues and me an immense responsibility. 4  BIS Review 67/2010