Lesetja Kganyago: In the shadow of COVID - lessons from 20 years of inflation targeting

Address by Mr Lesetja Kganyago, Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 12 August 2020.

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

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

This speech is about 20 years of inflation targeting.

For two decades, we have been part of a great international experiment in getting monetary policy right. Inflation targeting has delivered a long period of price stability, comparable to the best years of the post-War Bretton Woods system, and should be considered a success for South Africa and for many other countries.

To understand how we got to where we are now, looking back at 20 years of inflation targeting, we can start further back: with a speech from 1979, titled 'The anguish of central banking', by Arthur Burns, who was Chair of the US Federal Reserve for most of the 1970s.