The purpose was to get the countries to cooperate in analysing and solving problems and to clarify the distribution of roles and responsibilities. When the crisis moved into an acute phase in Latvia in December 2008 and large amounts of capital left the country, a loan agreement was signed at very short notice with the Riksbank and Danmarks Nationalbank on the one side and the Latvian central bank on the other side. The agreement totalled EUR 500 million, around SEK 5 billion. The main purpose of the agreement was to support Latvia’s foreign currency reserve up to the point when the first payments from the IMF and EU became available. One condition was that Latvia should sign an agreement with the IMF, as the Riksbank neither can nor should become involved in assessing whether or not the country is making the necessary economic adjustments. The Riksbank’s assessment was that if Latvia had not received extensive financial support from abroad at this stage it could have led to uncontrolled exchange rate depreciation and very large currency outflows. In February 2009 the Riksbank offered an arrangement to the Estonian central bank for short-term currency support. This arrangement was never used. Its purpose was to give the central bank the possibility to provide emergency liquidity support in the event of an acute crisis in local currency to the Swedish subsidiaries. It thus had a different purpose than the agreement with Latvia.
In order to prepare our region to be as competitive as possible, policy makers, firms and workers need to accurately gauge which industries and jobs will grow fastest. Given the trend over the past few decades, it is no surprise that the new jobs being created across the region and nation are most likely to be in industries with a high share of workers with a college education. Thus, education and worker training is likely to continue to be very important in maintaining the economic vitality of our region going forward. Conclusion In summary, the recovery in our region continued at a slow pace during the second quarter of 2011. While overall job growth has been sluggish through the recovery, we find that there has been a great deal of job churning below the surface throughout our region. So far, this job churning is about evenly balanced between old and new job creation. The evidence to date is pretty clear that these new jobs, on balance, are in industries that employ workers with higher levels of skills and education. I will now ask Jaison Abel to provide additional details on the regional economy. 1  Groshen, Erica L. and Simon Potter. 2003. “Has Structural Change Contributed to a Jobless Recovery?” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Current Issues in Economics and Finance 9, no. 8. Groshen, Erica L., Potter, Simon, and Rebecca J. Sale. 2004. “Economic Restructuring in New York State.” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Current Issues in Economics and Finance 10, no. 7.