Mr. Rostagno gave a presentation on "The ECB's Strategy in Good and Bad Times", providing a comprehensive overview of the current situation in the euro area and the ECB's monetary policy prior to, and after, the outbreak of the global financial crisis that started in 2007. Mr. Rostagno explained in depth the ECB's "Standard" and "Non-Standard" monetary policy measures, highlighting the conditions of the ECB's most recent OMT programme. Mr. Rostagno's session ended with an overview of the ECB's role in a more closely integrated banking union, where the ECB will soon take up its responsibilities as the euro area's sole banking supervisor.

The panel, comprised of Massimo Rostagno from the ECB, David Riley from Fitch Ratings, Mike Moran from Daiwa America and Tobias Blattner of Daiwa Europe tackled the issue of whether the developed economies’ best years are behind them.
Grant Lewis from Daiwa Europe chaired the discussion, which ranged across a wide number of issues facing the developed world’s economies their implications for investment strategies. The session kicked off with a discussion of prospects for the euro area. Panelists agreed that the ECB’s actions and the efforts to keep Greece in the single currency had removed the tail risk of euro are break up that had been at the heart of market participant’s fears during the summer. But there was also a recognition that significant challenges remain. First, the prospects for growth, particularly in the periphery, were poor, raising risks not only that fiscal targets would be missed, but also that political support for austerity eroded further. But the euro area also faced significant challenges in delivering the institutional reforms required to restore market confidence, with the panel broadly agreeing that concrete progress on these measures would not be seen until after the German election in the autumn of 2013. And even then delivering what is necessary will be very difficult. On the US, the panel felt that, while the fiscal cliff would be largely avoided, growth prospects would remain poor over coming quarters, with monetary policy remaining very loose. And with growth weak and little sign that the US’s longer-term fiscal issues would be decisively tackled, the threat of a downgrade from the rating agencies remained high.

Mr. Sun gave his presentation on “China Outlook - Hidden Recovery.”
He presented a positive short-term forecast (next 8 to 12 months) on Chinese economy, revealing several reasons for choosing the word “hidden” in his presentation’s title.
Mr. Sun emphasized the up-turn of the economy which has been continuing since April 2012, and explained the main driving forces: 1) the anticipated policy changing / reforms that are likely to be carried out by the new leaders and 2) the general background of this rebound in economy.
Mr. Sun, however, showed a concern on the long-term (5 to 10 years) growth of Chinese economy. He closed his presentation by addressing the main challenges that Chinese economic policy is facing.

David Riley, Head of Sovereign and Supranational Ratings at Fitch, opened this session with a wide-ranging presentation examining some of the factors that lay behind the impressive performance of many emerging market economies over the previous decade. These included the rise of China and its impact on commodity prices, the post-Asian crisis build up on FX reserves, increased globalization, better macroeconomic management, in particular the taming of inflation across much of the EM world, and the resulting upward migration in credit ratings.

David’s presentation was followed by a panel discussion chaired by Grant Lewis, Head of Research at Daiwa Europe and including Mingchun Sun, Head of China Research at Daiwa Hong Kong and Chris Scicluna, Head of Economic Research at Daiwa Europe. This discussion focused on whether the next decade can be as good for emerging markets as the past 10 years. The consensus among the panelists was that, having had such a stellar past decade, the coming decade provided more challenges. This was nowhere more true than in China, where the necessary rebalancing of the economy away from net exports and investment and potential problems in the wider banking sector posed medium-term risks. An expected slowdown in the medium-term rate of growth in China, meanwhile, would pose challenges for other EM economies, although it also afforded opportunities for some as manufacturing increasingly moved away from China to lower-cost centres. The point was also made that, while much of the focus was on Asia, countries in other regions (notably Brazil, Mexico and Turkey) had also made huge strides over recent years and that these countries should also continue to grow rapidly over coming years. The session concluded with each panelist picking out their favourite emerging market to watch over the coming decade.