With the benefit of hindsight, we can see the introduction of the euro ten years ago as a prescient, forward-looking response by Europe to the challenges and risks of the present world. I would now like to consider my third question: What challenges lie ahead for the single currency? Despite all the achievements, this is not the time for complacency. There are important challenges. The most important and most direct is of course to tackle the financial market turbulence and the economic downturn. But there are also challenges which go beyond tackling the current situation. But they are related to it in part. I would like to consider three challenges briefly: the securing of sound government finances, structural reforms in the euro countries and the expansion of the euro area. Securing of sound government finances Sound government finances are critical. They complement the ECB’s stability-oriented monetary policy. They prevent the fiscal policies of one country in the euro area from having  6  BIS Review 16/2009  negative effects on other countries. Beyond that, sound finances make a national economy more flexible. They are part of a growth-friendly environment. The fiscal policies of the Member States should promote the smooth functioning of Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union. The Stability and Growth Pact is the instrument to guarantee this. The Pact is the most important pillar in the economic union. It supports the monetary union. The strict and credible implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact is essential.
We are grateful for the assistance provided to the Project Team by our host Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu, city councils, Polis Diraja Malaysia and other local agencies. I also would like to take this opportunity to thank our two most important collaborators; The World Bank and the Malaysia Association of Money Services Business for their support in making Project Greenback 2.0 a success story that we can be proud of, for many years to come. I am proud to see how the hard work you put in have translated into impressive tangible results. These include a substantial number of new customers being on-boarded for digital remittance services, multifold growth in e-remittance transactions and significant reduction in the cost of sending money. A tiny difference in the remittance costs translates into a huge saving for the migrant workers and their families. Specific to Sabah, reducing the remittance costs by merely 1% means an additional RM24 million in the hands of migrant workers – this will benefit thousands of households in the receiving countries. Overall, this supports the regulatory objective of promoting greater usage of formal remittance channels, a common goal which is shared by our partner, the World Bank. I would like to end by sharing some aspirations about what should we do next after Project Greenback. Experimental economists Michael Kremer, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, recent Nobel laureates in Economics showed us how the big problem of poverty, could be tackled by the ability to break it down into more precise questions.