Against this background, I will touch upon the sub-prime crisis in the US with the objective of distilling the lessons that can be drawn for the development of housing finance. I will then dwell upon the developments in housing finance in India with a particular reference to banks.
Sound statistics are necessary to monitor these trends closely and accurately because of the economic costs that can accrue from imbalances and deviations of these indicators from sustainable levels. Mr. Chairman, a conscious effort on our part to improve upon data collection in terms of timelines and accuracy has an international dimension of interest.