Crucially, the Committee has also initiated an annual stock take of the supply side of the economy. It now publishes its best collective judgments on the natural rate of unemployment, the output gap, as well as the expected growth in productivity, labour supply and potential output. To draw out these points consider three examples of forward guidance by the MPC. The first occurred five years ago when the economy began to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. During previous periods of accelerating growth and firming business confidence, the MPC had always tightened policy significantly (as evidenced in the correlation between survey indicators and MPC votes seen in Chart 1). On the basis of this past behaviour, the MPC would have raised interest rates by 2 to 3 percentage points between August 2013 and the end of 2014. For anyone who might suggest the MPC should have followed that reaction function, note that, even on unchanged policy, CPI inflation in the summer of 2016 was running at only about ½% and core CPI inflation around 1¼%. 3  In other words, the amount of volatility in interest rates should match the amount of uncertainty surrounding the economy. There should ideally be no additional volatility, or risk premium, due to uncertainty about how policy would respond.
Datuk Zamani Abdul Ghani: Role of development financial institutions in the financial system Speech by Datuk Zamani Abdul Ghani, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the International CEO Forum of the Development Finance Institutions 2005, Kuala Lumpur, 12 September 2005. *  *  *  I would like first of all to express my sincere appreciation to the Association of Development Finance Institutions of Malaysia for inviting me to say a few words this morning on "The Role of Development Financial Institutions (or DFIs) in the Financial System". It is indeed an honour to address such a distinguished gathering of CEOs and senior officials of DFIs from many parts of the world. Before going further into the subject at hand, allow me to congratulate the organisers for jointly putting up this international forum. This forum provides a platform for CEOs and senior officials to exchange views and ideas on SME development and just as important, the roles of DFIs in this endeavour. I would also like to specifically welcome the foreign participants to Malaysia and wish that you will have a pleasant and enjoyable stay in Kuala Lumpur. My remarks this morning will consist of three parts. The first provides an overall perspective on the universal establishment of DFIs in many parts of the world; the second will look at the prospects and some of the challenges for DFIs in carrying out their roles; and the final part will provide an insight into the roles of DFIs from the Malaysian perspective.