 Good morning. Thank you for being so many early in the morning for this session of reports of the working groups. I have the privilege to report for the workshop on finance and economy, which took place under the chairmanship of Jean-Claude Trichet. Our discussion covered the overall economic situation, the outlook for international trade, the potential risks involved with cryptocurrencies and, for quite a lively discussion, major issues in development finance. So let me start with the economic situation. While last year we had met almost in the middle of the storm at a time of surging inflation and we had been discussing the reactions of central banks, the timing of very likely interest rate rises, the probability of recession. Participants noted this year that inflation wise still a bit too high had started again abating in major economies and that the question this year was whether when central bank would start to cut interest rates and probably not before mid 2024. But clearly the tightening cycle was coming to an end. The discussion on current economic prospects underlined a difference between the United States and Europe In the United States, relative optimism was prevailing in an economy at full employment experiencing a rise in business investment in response notably to the Expansionary Inflation Reduction Act. The policy mix in the US was thus characterized by a cautious monetary policy expected to ease only when unemployment would start increasing and by a fiscal policy not expected to undergo any major change in 2024, but whose expansionary effects would continue to be felt. As a result, in a textbook like Mundelflaming model for those who have been exposed to economic modeling, economic growth was expected to continue, interest rate would remain relatively high and start declining later in 2024 and the dollar would remain strong. The soft landing scenario, at least in the United States, seemed to be becoming a reality. In contrast with the apparent prosperity in the US, growth was much more subdued in Europe, notably due to a higher sensitivity to the shock represented by the war in Ukraine. This divergence with the US was expected to remain at least till the end of 2024. The Chinese economy was facing the implications of the industrial property bubble and a growth slowdown with the paralysis of entrepreneurship. It was mentioned that manufacturing was sensitive to cycles like in countries such as Korea, Japan and Asia economies including and even Germany and that in turn the Chinese economy itself was entering a regime of economic cycles with recurring ups and downs. Overall prospects for 2024 were expected to be more rosy with two potential downside risks, of course, a further slowdown in China and a worsening of the internal crisis, notably crisis in the Middle East. The latter presented a risk of increased energy prices, of the rise of investments in defence, of declining world trade, of a decline in global confidence and the rise of global uncertainties, of an increase in market volatility and a risk of return of inflationary pressures. So far, however, it was noted that stock markets had not seemed to be affected too strongly. Altogether, the geopolitical risk could fully derail this relatively quiet scenario and the group seemed reasonably confident but recognized that this confidence was fragile and that unfortunate surprises might sanction any undue complacency. As part of our discussion, the economic situation, the rise in public indebtedness was also mentioned as a source of concern especially in a situation where one might have doubts about the evolution in the foreseeable future or the difference between the growth rate and the interest rate which is a major indicator of the sustainability of the debt burden. This was seen as a further argument to credibly bring inflation down as a way to restore the capacity to bring interest rates down. Let me move to the outlook for internal trade. While trade had grown faster than global production from 1950 to 2008, it was no longer the case since about 2012. Trade is now growing more slowly than global GDP and this is expected to continue in the context of a weakening World Trade Organization, WTO. Many new protectionist measures have been adopted and the commitment to achieve the Doha Round remained a dead letter. The dispute settlement of the WTO is itself in dispute. While a characteristic of the post-World War II order has been a liberalisation of trade driven by gains in cost and economic efficiency and supported by a growing evidence that import substitution strategies did not produce lasting growth, there was now a shift to new considerations in which the security concern and broadly speaking security across energy supplies, food and health, the control of technology was indeed pregnant. This shift could be attributed to the so-called three Cs, conflict, COVID and climate concerns. And all this is leading to potential trade barriers. In addition, the emerging focus on technology and industrial policy is resulting in new forms of subsidies and trade restrictions. There are also trade diversions. Earlier Chinese manufacture exports are now sometimes diverted by industrial delocalisation of Chinese firms to nearby expanding countries. In this context, the call by the G20 to reaffirm support to a rules-based system including fair, open, non-discriminary, inclusive, sustainable and transparent trade centred around the strengthening of the WTO, a commitment to fully restore its functioning dispute settlement mechanism et all this appeared as a set of promises not really backed at least yet by an active agenda. Let me now move to what we discussed about financial innovations and financial risks. There was a brief discussion of the financial innovations introduced by cryptocurrencies and a debate about central bank electronic money. First of all, the total amount of cryptocurrencies in circulation was estimated to around 1,000 billion euros, half in Bitcoins, half in other cryptocurrencies and this is actually only half, sort of half the balance sheet of a big bank like Ben Peppariba. The point is that the development of these cryptocurrencies while highly speculative is not creating any systemic risk. However, it was emphasized that they were introducing a real risk of fraud, criminal activities and the risk of financing of terrorism. In contrast, other financial innovations could be considered as a major change and a major revolution for retail banks. That of electronic payments made through smartphones and they have become a major part of retail payments. Central bank electronic money was also under active discussion and was expected to represent a real threat for retail banking and to introduce major questions about the future of banks. However, central banks are conscious of the risk involved and seem to be keen of introducing central bank electronic CBEM versions that wouldn't threaten the stability of the banking system. Finally, we discussed again very actively and in depth development finance issues. Many developing countries, especially in Africa are under a severe credit crunch. Many are in debt distress after years of pining up debt as abundant liquidity was recycled in quest of higher returns in the context of very low world interest rates. The situation today is radically different. In a very tense geopolitical context, people in developed countries are less and less interested in the rest of the world. Billions are committed by seldom made available private flows are diminishing for rational reasons. Governments in developed countries face high public debt and tight fiscal constraints while they again resort to active industrial policies. And risk aversion has again increased. African countries under debt distress do pay their debt service because they realize that the cost of default are extremely high. But it leaves them without resources to pay for health, education, basic services, not mentioning the need to finance sustainable green growth strategies and the energy transition. In fact, many countries receive now less new funds and they pay debt service. They experience net negative transfers from developed countries. Some African countries are even under net negative transfers from China, so they pay more to China than they receive from China. Developing country debt today is characterized by the weight of private creditors, notably in the forms of bonds on the one hand and the importance of non-pied club members including China on the other hand. China has emerged as a first bilateral creditor for public and publicly granted debt of developing countries. It can be understood as other traditional creditors were no longer available to fund African and other developing countries needs. It was pointed out that there is no pro-China ideology in African countries. But simply given their situations, they are welcoming new money whenever available. Anyhow, right now, new money is very scarce and China is no longer providing new funding nor likely to resume such funding in the near future. This combination makes debt negotiations particularly difficult since China is not bound by the disciplines and experience set up by the Paris Club and private actors are not keen to consider debt reduction or risk-aduling actions. G20 initiatives so far, such as the common framework, have made little success in terms of implementation. More recently, the Global Sovereign Debt Runtable has been set up as a low profile initiative involving lenders and borrowers, both public and private, and a sentiment in the group that this could be more effective than past attempts. It was agreed that we do need to bring China to the board as well as private funders. There is a dramatic contrast between this credit crash situation and a broad international agreement that financing should be scaled up and forthcoming, both because development needs and about the imperative of dealing with climate change. Such a scaling up should be supported by the mobilisation of private finance. None of this or very little of this is happening. Instead, ODA flows are increasingly absorbed by a number of needs that go well beyond genuine development finance. For example, the founding of refugees in donor countries themselves or the founding for climate change mitigation. It was pointed out that despite an increase in ODA statistics, actual ODA going to Africa had in fact decreased. A major issue related to the effectiveness and timeliness of ODA was also the nature and implementation of conditionality. Developed countries intentions are plagued by some confusion and an inability to use existing instruments such as guarantees including the World Bank's MIGA or to actually and effectively leverage private funds. There is some confusion between on the one hand climate adaptation needs which should actually be mainstreamed as what should be looked as a basic good development strategy and on the other hand climate change mitigation objectives which only really concern doesn't also emerging countries likely to have an impact. A lot of African countries are too small to have any mitigating impact so the focus there should be on adaptation and development. However, multi-development banks, the MDPs are not equipped to selectively allocate mitigation-related funding to these countries in priority. It is now important to think about ways to differentiate support for mitigation on the one hand and for adaptation and broader development. As for the mobilisation of private funding it has been largely unsuccessful and this is mainly due to a prevailing culture of risk aversion in development finance institution. Such risk aversion not only affects decision and the capacity to innovate but it also penalises the implementation of decisions existing instruments and potentially promising initiatives for the requirements of increasingly complex due processes intended to control risk in development finance institutions. While this is understandable it appears as a major impediment in the effectiveness and availability of development finance. As a result there is much talk on agreement on the need to react urgently to the current emergencies but subsequent action doesn't look like any emergency. For all the focus in our discussion on the staff issues the general impression in the group was that the global economy has so far muddled through and shown impressive resilience and that we should focus our attention on actually implementing initiatives and commitments and that for this to happen as if dialogues and debates were necessary. Thank you very much and I'm now giving the floor to group 2.