 Thank you. I think we were actually listening to the third very interesting presentation. Unfortunately, it got disconnected. But we already heard two very interesting presentations on Kenny and Cameron. I also looked at the paper on Ghana. I think they have come up with almost the very common, some common stories. I think where I'm coming from, from South Asia and looking at South Southern Africa, I think many things we have in common, especially when it comes to challenges of mobilizing domestic servings. But at the same time, few things probably what we can offer to South Southern Africa in terms of getting some lessons the way South Asian countries perform. And definitely East Asian or South Asian countries perform better than South Asian countries. So we can look at those issues. I think those will be very, very important to understand the whole topic, what we are discussing today. I thought that the first point is of course looking at the economic performance issues, especially the way the pattern of economic growth and in South Southern Africa. It has been low and it has been volatile. I think that is also extremely important to understand how to mobilize domestic savings. If you look at some of the other South Asian countries or Southeast Asian countries in terms of volatility, in terms of keeping a healthy economic growth rate for a longer period of time, I think we see some mark differences. And that is also very much related to building the economic resilience in terms of with respect to the shocks, external shocks. I think this is also extremely important because savings behavior can be affected as you have very, in a couple of the papers we saw external shocks can actually affect the savings behavior and how to absorb the external shocks, the resilience of the economy is extremely important. So my point is that when we think of the kind of unsatisfactory performance of most of the South Southern African countries in terms of mobilizing savings, we need to look at their growth pattern. I'm very sure that these three papers actually look at this. Now when it comes to the growth and savings next year's, so which one affects one, definitely we all agree that it has a kind of feedback loop. So savings leads to investment, investment leads to growth, and the growth leads to rise in income, then it leads to savings. So there is a kind of circularity there. But also one of the very recent papers by Professor Kunal Sen and his colleague looked at the how productivity growth actually affected savings. So when you look at, when you take into account all these issues, I think definitely a sustained period of economic growth which can actually build the productive capacity and then can lead to building the confidence of the households or other economic agents that is extremely important for the South Southern African countries. And that is not only for South Southern African countries. I think that is applicable to the South Asian countries as well. But then how do we do that? How do we achieve those kind of sustained period of economic growth? And in terms to achieve those that's targets, I think those we need to look at those economic policies. I'm very glad that these three papers try to look at those economy underlying economic policies, macro policies, monetary policies, fiscal policies. But then if we really want to, if we, if I have, if I don't misunderstood it, that the larger savings in South Southern Africa, like many other developing countries, that is actually generated by the households. So how to actually what kind of economic policies, what kind of economic macro and micro policies, especially financial policies, can lead to larger household savings in the South, in the South Southern African countries. That is extremely important. And I agree that when it comes to public savings, the relation of public savings with the private savings, you may not really get a very conclusive picture, but again, it's true that if government runs on very large dissavings and then the dissavings has to be financed by external borrowing and then you have a larger dead burden, that also leads to building less, lesser confidence within the economy and which can actually also affect households' savings. So all these are very much interconnected and then also, you don't really find that which one affects directly or which one is a very strongly exonous because they are also interdependent to each other. Related to this, I thought that and also it came out in very strongly in a couple of the papers that the financial sector development is extremely important because looking at the experience of the East Asian countries and also some of the South Asian countries, the way savings facilities have been developed and especially removing the households borrowing constraints, it actually helped the small and rural savers to increase their savings at a low transaction cost. So this is something is very, very important, but even from Bangladesh, the experience what I can share with you that many banks and even under government's policy initiatives which we have seen in a couple of the papers that government has taken initiatives to offer several financial products to the households but actual uptake of these products don't, it doesn't really necessarily depend on the number of products being offered by the banks or the initiatives because there are many other constraints which can actually affect the savers to actually uptake those those products, financial products. For example, there is a very strong policy initiative by the government in Bangladesh for the women's financial inclusion how to increase the financial inclusion of the women and many banks because of the government's policies they are coming up with many financial products for women to undertake to undertake these products, but when you have an economy where actually in South Asia, it's not very applicable probably in South Africa because in South Asia you will have, you will see that low female labor force participation in the economic activities, whereas in South Africa on average the female labor force participation rate is higher so in, so what I'm saying that in South Asia where you have those products being offered but because of women's low participation in the economic activities the uptake of those services become very very less so this is something probably we need to highlight that too so the whole idea of financial deepening, financial inclusion becomes extremely important and how do you devise it and how do you what kind of products you offer which can effectively taken by the savers that will enhance the overall domestic saving scenario one factor I thought that which is structurally given for a kind of given in the sense for the Sub-Saharan African on average for the Sub-Saharan African countries which is you can't really solve this problem in a short time which is the kind of demographic structure because of very high age dependency ratio I just give you the comparison that very recent figure the Sub-Saharan African countries has 82% of age dependency ratio you know proportion the working age population whereas in South Asia it is only 51% and East Asia it is 48% so that means that structurally there is a kind of disadvantageous position for the Sub-Saharan African countries if I have a very large age dependency dependent population who doesn't really save so then it becomes difficult to mobilize this what does it mean it means that for Sub-Saharan African countries to overcome this challenge you need some extraordinary efforts to be undertaken so some very conventional way of thinking would not really work and that can also be translated into a positive side like you can look at the demographic dividend especially the demographic dividend phase many of the Sub-Saharan African countries that are going through and which can actually be very helpful if that demographic dividend can be effectively utilized or ripped so I think that is something a bigger challenge how do you ensure a decent job how do you ensure larger or better productive employment opportunities for this young population which would eventually turn into contributing to larger saving generation finally I thought that I was really very interested to look at Ghanas paper when the title was Institution but I was really not really finding that Institution aspect probably as you said 15% work is remaining probably that that one is extremely important that the role of institution and Professor Sen he has worked quite extensively on that too that in terms of the state capacity in terms of integrity of the financial system the way it can build the confidence among the savers in terms of political stability especially or also in terms of having a very large informal sector in effect it leads to large dominance of informal institution so when you have the dominance of informal institution then again you know how do you really mobilize savings at the national level it becomes difficult to generate those large savings there are problems of property rights we talked about it yesterday especially when you impose taxes land taxes when land rights are not very clearly defined then of course the other institution issues like control of corruption or legal system all these are extremely important and I'm quite sure that the Ghanas paper when you work on this probably you can highlight on these things as well I have a couple of points for the countries for the papers for example in the Kenya paper probably Rosy could highlight a little bit more on the model you applied especially what kind of econometric model you did in the Cameron case ARDL is definitely is a very good application but you also found that when you put both the per capita GDP and per capita GDP growth together then it becomes difficult to explain so I think better you the way you did for regression 3 and regression 4 keep them separate and and then for I think the Ghana paper we unfortunately we missed that the presentation one my final comment would be that these all these three country papers are looking at more using time series data the pro this is a definitely an advantage because when you take into account look at the country context and try to understand what are the factors determining domestic savings or national savings but there are problems too because when many of the data or many of the indicators what we are talking about especially in the regressions some of them are actually not very well developed especially if you look at the if you even plot those data you may not find much variation I think in in addition to this time series regression in each of these papers I think it would be good to bring in all this comparative analysis you know the way south asia or south east asia how they actually address those challenges and what kind of lessons you can uh, you can you can you can get from those, you know by comparison at the same time some cross-country analysis too I think that would actually add more insights to your analysis with this I would like to conclude here. Thank you Uh, and thank you for giving us the conclusions to your paper I think you now have another eight minutes for discussions I will now open it up to the plenary Uh, who we can cut up. So any questions from the plenary? Karen you look like you're urgent to go Yes Thank you. Thank you for very good presentations One question I'd like to ask The lady from Ghana Could you tell us a little bit about the default by Ghana? and Whether you think more local savings would have Supported the country not default on its debt The other issue is what you said about people not being able to Meet their basic needs. I think when we look at savings, we need to look at it also vis-a-vis the level of employment and also the number of people that are living below the poverty line The other third question is when we look at Savings and revenue domestic revenue mobilization Debt is a fast charge Over the government revenue collections How does that affect the country in terms of mobilization of resources And in terms of development. Thank you Any another question? Just go now Oh Okay for you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Uh, this is just a comment And it's going to abram. You see that in Cameroon. We have a Central bank which manages the region central or the african region. So this is where we get the monitored policy So is it is there possibility? That's why we have high savings but savings not growing because we have a common monetary policy So that if you're controlling they say the interest rates It may be for the region rather than for the specific country and in that case Are the initiatives taken in Cameroon to ensure savings go up? I don't know maybe it's covered in the paper Then something else which you may also need to consider in the ARDL framework It's the critical values because if the time period is so short then There are critical values which were calculated by Narayan. I don't know. It's 20 something Because the idea is that if the period is so short then the critical values are Understated so maybe that can help you in doing the cointegration. Thank you Go ahead. Yeah. So I had a question. I mean we talked about macro policy monetary policy fiscal policy total external shocks But I didn't see too much of a discussion of financial liberalization or repression If you look at the latin america experience when they had financial liberalization And it had a very negative effect on domestic saving If you look at the station experience they had followed financial repression in other words keeping interest rates capped Almost to a point negative real interest rates and that often is argued that that's why they had high domestic savings So one what is the experience of Cameroon Ghana and Ankinia with financial liberalization And yet and and if they have had financial liberalization, what are the implications for domestic saving? Are they following a latin american model or they're following a east station model? But that's a really important question going forward because many countries are learizing their financial markets. Thanks Thank you. Okay. Could we take the three questions and we've got five minutes So we need to be quick with the answers monica the first three were yours Yes, thank you very much for the question. So the first question I had had to do with Um, our current debt crisis that we are in like the question was do I think if we had more savings? And we maybe wouldn't have defaulted on our debt I I I don't think so I mean, obviously high savings is good. And then, you know, the the the states can have access to resources I I think in our case the default on the debt Perhaps has to do more with how it's spent because um, we had quite a high proportion of people actually Saved up a lot and so most of these people have actually had to undergo And the debt restrictions a restriction that we are at the country is actually facing now So we have private people who have lost a lot. Um because of that. So I don't think The response was quite good. All right. Could you go to abram? Do you have any reaction to the comment? Yeah, so first in in terms of the time period, um, the data is from 1980 to 2018, right? That gives you an average, you know, 38 to 39 observations. So it's um Unless you're going to have a time period of 50 years I think that's decent enough for some rigorous time series analysis and you can be relatively confident in, you know, the kinds of statistics and critical values you might have In terms of the central bank. Yeah, the the country has tried to implement measures To increase savings, right? But the central bank actually controls the reserve requirements, isn't it? So in terms of the country specific measures to increase savings in terms of Granting more access to credit to private borrowers And expanding credit significantly to smaller medium-sized enterprises And even the most micro of enterprises the the various countries have taken up those initiatives And that's actually what contributed more to their increase in savings You cannot discount the importance of the central bank But the effect so you can actually feel the what they are doing It's more palpable in terms of the amount of reserves which you're supposed to leave with the bank And rather than the amount of savings which you are going to have so in terms of the reserves Yes, that may have contributed significantly to the savings in each of those countries But then there are also Quite good initiatives in terms of what the government has been trying to do to increase savings In terms of financial liberalization The financial sector in Cameroon is relatively constrained to begin with so even if you were completely liberalized per se I don't imagine it having any serious effects on savings because like I said, it's quite constrained But it's something worth thinking and I can add it to the 15 percent like I said and you know try to see if there's been anything about it And what we can glean from that I can respond to Selim asked How we went about doing our study And one of the things you'll find for these case studies We have used the almost similar methodology One basing it on the life life cycle hypothesis And secondly, we also tried to Kind of standardize the variables that we are using to allow for even comparison across the The various studies so for Kenya we We used a period 1980 to 2019 and The same same things that My colleague here was explaining the ARDL Sort of methodologies is the same thing that we used And the same variables that he was bringing out are the same variables that we used so In terms of a financial liberalization Thanks, prof. I think we We may want to look again because between 1980 And 2019 very many things have happened in the in the country Between 1990 1980 to 1992 That's a period before the Interest rates were liberalized 1992 to Say 2016 17 That's a period before the interest rate copying. Yeah So it's something that we actually didn't bring in Uh, but probably it's something that we need to explore and maybe This time around maybe use a kind of A dummy variable Because I think the interest rate even when we we use it as a real interest rate itself We not capture all the those Dynamics, but I want to say that Yes with the liberalization we saw the interest rates are the The door the deposit rates are slightly going up but The the the clear period when when you you so domestic Deposit rates are carried if staying almost to a higher level In nominal terms Is a period when we had the copying because with the copying they were kept at a certain level But after that they have gone back to They have they have gone down again, but it's an interesting area that we may want to re-estimate and see whether Taking a dummy variable would actually give us something different here. Thank you Was your question answered? Fantastic. All right. Monica. Do you have to your final points? I hope I hope this time Um, my question was on um, why perhaps if we had more savings that could have reduced the defaults or not on our debts and my answer was that And not quite because we still we there was a lot of um, high savings high rates of savings amongst Um, privates, um, you know individuals even to the extent that even when we had the Restructuring of debt with the interest rates going up. We still had the government Bonds actually the government bills actually being over subscribed So I don't think the issue of our defaults on debts. It's coming from the lack of savings I think it's just mainly from coming from the fiscal side how we actually spending it And just before my internet goes out on me again, let me answer the second question that had to do with, um, the focusing on employment and then the poverty line asked the lady Who asked the question earlier said so garner the in garner the The informality is about 80 percent, right? So yes, you can imagine that people um, the the because because of the high informality that we have Incomes may not be as high as um, you know, we would we would want we would hope for So you have a situation where people are still Um unable to cater for their basic needs So then savings wouldn't wouldn't be the first thing they'll be thinking about when they get their money and aside that Um, yes, there's been a lot of discussions about how to widen the tax net to be able to open people in the informal sector because most we we do have very high tax rates. I think You know, the vat's are very high. We've had covet levy. We've had, um, you know, we have we have so many levies That's, um, you know, tries to bring in the informal sector because of the high Informality that we have so there are all these discussions going on But I think that it's important like the discussant said to be able to think of very innovative ways to be able to You know, broaden the tax base so that we can rope in more Revenue for our development agenda The time is fast-paced and I want to respect everybody's time So thank you very much for the opportunity to respond to some of these questions. Thank you. Thank you very much and Sorry, the internet kept falling all the time. Sorry about that. Okay. So I think we've uh, we'll wrap it there It's been a very nice engaging discussion. I want to thank the panel and the discussant There's a lot of land as well coming from a country that We feel the impact of of these challenges We've just mentioned and I think we take all this now forward to formulate into some form of Policies for our nations and see how we can help increase the levels of savings. So thank you very much I want to thank the audience and thank you monica for staying on Uh, despite the challenges. Okay. Thank you man. I wish you all