As a matter of fact, despite the promises hardly pledged at the Fund Donors Conference on Burundi, held in Paris in November 2000, the international aid did not resume and the economy has continued to cruelly suffer from a lack of resources in terms of foreign currency.

Coupled with the weakness of the national output, particularly food production, due to insecurity, this shortage of import payment means plunged the country in an unprecedented hard economic situation.

In this hostile environment, the financial sector, like any other economic agents, bore the brunt of the companies hardships and generally witnessed the decline of the overall balance.

Thus, the Bank's profits for the financial year 2001, which we expected to improve as compared to the year 2000, only reached 1,121.O M BIF against 1,329.8 M for the previous year, i.e. a decrease of 208.8 M.

Although in decline, these achievements that go, for the second consecutive year, beyond the threshold of a billiard franc remain generally positive and translate the continuous reinforcement of our adaptability to the crisis.

Adaptability not only as far as our management tools and our procedures are concerned, but also adaptability towards our yearly expanding distribution network in favour of our specific customers.

These performances are due to the constant supervision of the Board of Directors, the managerial professionalism of our Management Committee, the commitment and the sustained endeavour of the whole staff.

We warmly thank them all.

At the same time, we invite them to increase their efforts in their work since the challenges remain so numerous.

As a matter of fact, in a turbulent environment intermittently driven by shortages, change occurs so rapidly that the evolution capability has become a major competitive advantage.

We would like to end our speech by exhorting the staff and the management to reinforce their anticipation and reactivation capabilities in order to achieve better results in the year 2002.