We certainly worry because it affects us enormously. We export 45% of GDP, 70% of that goes to Europe and the United States which are the focus of the current slowdown. So it worries us a lot. It will have an impact on us if the slowdown gets worse. So we watch it very closely. We hope for the best and we prepare for the worst.
If you were addressing the European finance ministers as Timothy Geithner did last week, what would you tell them? Is it time for economists like yourself to tell them to get their act together?
Well, if I were just an economist without any affiliation to a particular country or particular central bank, I might say something like that, but since I'm the governor of the Central Bank, of a relatively small country, I probably be much more circumspect in suggesting that time is getting short, and the challenges are great, that there are solutions and that it’s necessary to decide whether to make big decisions to stabilize the situation in Europe in particular.
That's the point. Alistair Darling was telling me last week, the window is closing, the opportunity is getting less, would you agree?
That's the nature of crisis, and time goes by, you deal with something, then the next problem comes along, and the time between those problems gets shorter and shorter, and in some cases, crisis are worked with people who don’t act in time, and the others they do, and we hope this will be one of them in which they do act in time.
