**  2003 average until November 2003. *  Almost all the 2003 data are forecasts. Source: INSTAT, Ministry of Finances, Bank of Albania and IMF estimations. *** As a conclusion, I would like to underline once again that the Bank of Albania does not make its policy decisions separately, but following carefully all the developments of the economy, and this is really important for the public to understand. As it is now a tradition, the monetary policy of the Bank of Albania is part of the general economic development program of the country. As such, it can’t be but a range of decisions and measures, which in good harmony with the other policies, the fiscal one, etc.,  2  BIS Review 8/2004  aim at economy growth and reduction of the poverty in the country. The coordination of monetary and fiscal policies could be achieved in the mid-term development program of the country, a program covering a three-year time span. The extensive logic of this program gives a crucial importance to keeping up macroeconomic stability. Keeping up macroeconomic stability serves as a bridging gap between the monetary policy and the fiscal one. Hence, the monetary policy is committed in keeping up price stability, whereas the fiscal one controls the budget deficit. These macroeconomic indicators are strongly related to one another: fulfilling each of them requires, as a basic condition, the observance of the other objectives.
Today, I would like to focus my remarks on three important shifts that I believe will underpin innovative risk management practices going forward. · First is the changing role and focus of risk managers in supporting business decisionmaking. ·  Second, is a shift from risk measures to risk narratives. · And third is an increasing emphasis on building resilience alongside the prevailing focus on averting risks. Changing role of risk managers One of the most important changes that corporations can make to strengthen risk management is to appropriately position the risk function to effectively support enhanced business decision making. An effective risk management function should interact with other business functions to deliver value. This itself is hardly an innovative idea. But you would be surprised (or maybe not) to learn that despite an increasing involvement of risk managers in business decision-making, poor alignment between decisions that are taken by business leaders, and the intentions of senior management and the board, continue to persist in many organisations. A common reason for this is the absence of, or a poorly defined risk appetite framework. And very few organisations, if any, have gone further to articulate their risk appetite for managing innovation specifically. This has important implications for risk managers. We cannot expect risk managers to be very helpful to business leaders who have explicit growth and revenue targets to meet, if risk managers are not themselves guided by a risk appetite that is equally well-defined.