"We left for Iceland with only 24 hours’ notice and—by the time we arrived—the Icelandic foreign exchange market had collapsed and the króna was in free-fall. Foreign currency was already being severely rationed to ensure that payments for priority imports could continue to be made—even the smooth supply of imported food and medicines was not assured. What we witnessed unfolding right in front of our eyes was not only one of the deepest financial crises in modern economic history, but one that was associated with a high risk of becoming severly disruptive to Iceland’s real sector and to people’s welfare, reflecting the extreme dependence on imports and the significant foreign-currency and foreign-currency indexed debt that households and corporations has incurred in the boom years."
Poul Thomsen, Europachef för Internationella valutafonden, i lördagens
tal i Harpa i Reykjavík om hur IMF samarbetade med Islands regering efter finanskraschen hösten 2008 - se hela talet och den efterföljande diskussionen med centralbankschefen Már Guðmundsson
här.
"We left for Iceland with only 24 hours’ notice and—by the time we arrived—the Icelandic foreign exchange market had collapsed and the króna was in free-fall. Foreign currency was already being severely rationed to ensure that payments for priority imports could continue to be made—even the smooth supply of imported food and medicines was not assured. What we witnessed unfolding right in front of our eyes was not only one of the deepest financial crises in modern economic history, but one that was associated with a high risk of becoming severly disruptive to Iceland’s real sector and to people’s welfare, reflecting the extreme dependence on imports and the significant foreign-currency and foreign-currency indexed debt that households and corporations has incurred in the boom years."
