In addition, the Bank of Albania has supplied and continues to supply the interbank market with the required amount of liquidity. BIS Review 148/2008  1  As I have mentioned in my previous statements: There’s no such thing as a free lunch! Meaning that emphasis should be put on the far-sighted perspective characterizing the Bank of Albania in the recent years. I do not refer here only to price stability, but also to the greatest challenge: banking system stability. The Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania has constantly amended the regulatory basis creating incentives for more qualitative lending, while other decisions have aimed at providing more banking system transparency to the public, more efficient internal control and better management and governing structures. Regardless of what has been stated above, the future is of prime importance. For many reasons that I have also mentioned in my previous statements, end-year 2008 and almost the entire year 2009 will in a global context be hard, full of challenges and we will be walking through unknown paths. Overcoming this economic crisis requires time. Its solution will materialize through the resetting of a number of internal and external economic balances, the re-arrangement of many supervisory institutions and the re-design of the regulatory framework on many financial market segments. Put in this general setting, the idea that our small economy would resist this global economic tsunami with no consequences at all sounds as unrealistic. However, this issue is even more intricate.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Malaysia’s fast-changing financial landscape Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the 26th Annual Dinner 2005 of The Association of Merchant Banks, Kuala Lumpur, 3 December 2005. *  *  *  I am pleased to be here tonight on this special occasion of the 26th Annual Dinner of the Association of Merchant Banks in Malaysia. The year 2005 is a particularly significant year for the merchant banking industry in particular and for the financial sector more generally. While this decade has seen significant changes taking place in our financial landscape that followed from the restructuring, consolidation, greater investment in technology, deregulation, liberalisation and changes in the regulatory environment, the year 2005 has seen an intensification of the pace of change in the financial sector. Let me take this opportunity to discuss the macroeconomic environment which these changes are occurring, and discuss further some of the more recent changes that are taking place in the financial system. Our economy has been able to continue to benefit from the favourable external environment as the global economy demonstrates its robustness in an environment of high oil prices and rising global interest rates. On the domestic front, our overall performance was further reinforced with the expanding domestic demand. Latest indicators suggest that the growth momentum remains firmly on track, with an improved growth of 5.3% in the third quarter.