The local, regional environments today are significantly different from what existed when we held our last capital markets conference. On the domestic scene the trend towards consolidation in the financial sector has continued. The local stock market index which rose  BIS Review 125/2007  1  by 26.4% in 2004 fell by 6.8% in 2006.
The performance of the mutual fund component of the market which had been registering annual growth up to 2004 seems to be levelling off and performed below par in 2006. At the regional level many of the strongest well-established and most reputable regional companies have remained robust but some have experienced declines in their share prices during the last two years or so.