Because of all that, in order to maintain the equilibrium in the foreign exchange market in the last quarter of 2008 the foreign exchange interventions of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, through net sales of foreign exchange, amounted to Euro 162.3 million while for the period January 01-March 20, 2009, they amounted to Euro 181.0 mill. also on net basis. This is what actually enabled maintaining the existing foreign exchange rate level. As unfavorable developments in foreign trade continue and happen within high uncertainties for future capital inflows and net private transfers, as well as under psychological pressures over the citizens that direct them towards swapping national into foreign currency, we are of an opinion that further change in the monetary policy of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia is needed. Namely, although the registered inflationary drop, when observing just this indicator, indicates lower risks, still the pressures over the foreign exchange rate (as an intermediate objective of the monetary policy) and the growing risks of further widening of external imbalances, clearly seek from us to increase the restrictiveness of the monetary policy. For these  BIS Review 60/2009  1  reasons, we decided to raise the interest rate on the Central Bank bills by 2 percentage points that is becoming effective from the next auction, i.e. instead of 7 percent into rate of 9 percent. III.
The asset management industry continued to grow well last year, with assets under management posting a 9% increase to reach $ trillion. Singapore will introduce a new corporate and regulatory framework to encourage fund domiciliation in Singapore and build up fund administration capabilities. MAS is working closely with the private equity/venture capital (PE/VC) industry to see how we can enhance financing for growth-stage companies, both local and from around the region. PE/VC financing has been increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 30% over the last 5 years. In the Renminbi (RMB) market, we are expanding two-way flows between China and Singapore. Besides Suzhou and Tianjin, Singapore has established cross-border RMB initiatives with the rapidly growing city of Chongqing. Corporates in Chongqing that issue RMB bonds in Singapore can fully repatriate the proceeds raised for infrastructure and other development projects in western China. We are witnessing a healthy volume of transactions now. In foreign exchange trading, we are working on electronification of the market. Digitisation, competition, and consolidation are rapidly transforming the global foreign  BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  exchange (FX) landscape. MAS’ focus is to position Singapore as Asia’s e-trading hub to build on our FX centre, which is already the largest in Asia. We are working with FIs and FX trading platforms to build relevant infrastructure such as matching and pricing engines that will anchor liquidity in our marketplace. In infrastructure finance, the focus now is on enabling capital recycling.