Alex Brazier: Protecting economic muscle - finance and the Covid crisis

Speech by Mr Alex Brazier, Executive Director for Financial Stability Strategy and Risk of the Bank of England, at the CFO Virtual Agenda, 23 July 2020.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

These are immensely challenging and uncertain times for many of you. You have faced the reality of the economic numbers that hit the headlines: the precipitous fall in output, followed more recently by the beginnings of a normalisation in some sectors as public health measures have been eased.

The path followed by the economy in recent months has had more to do with epidemiology than economics. How the public health situation, and therefore the economy, evolve over the coming months and quarters remains to be seen.

The target of economic policy has been to minimise the longer-term 'scarring' of our economy's muscle; muscle that is made up of your and other businesses. The aim is to minimise the harm to our productive capacity - to allow output and employment to get as close as possible to their pre-covid paths, once public health measures are lifted fully.