The significant share of Hong Kong in Mainland0’s FDI and ODI underscores the unique role of Hong Kong as a gateway for foreign enterprises to access the Mainland market, while at the same time being a springboard for Mainland institutions to gain exposure to international markets. 7. With respect to portfolio investment flows, Mainland China has made important progress after joining the WTO in 2001. Portfolio inflows were allowed through the introduction of the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme in 2002. A few years  BIS Review 153/2010  1  later, portfolio outflows were liberalised by introducing the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) scheme in 2006: this allows certain qualified banks, insurers and fund management companies to invest overseas. 8. At present, market attention has been focusing on portfolio flows from advanced economies towards Mainland China. In my view, portfolio flows in the opposite direction – i.e. portfolio outflows from Mainland China – will also present huge opportunities to the asset management industry, especially given the fact that the Mainland economy is the single largest provider of savings in the world. 9. Currently, outward portfolio investment (OPI) from the Mainland is only around 5% of its GDP, still far below 57% for East Asia, 42% for the US and over 100% for the UK. Our in-house research findings show that an economy’s portfolio investment outflows as a percentage of GDP tend to grow along with the level of economic development measured by per capita GDP.
Philipp Hildebrand: Switzerland and global competition - an all-purpose strategy Summary of a speech by Mr Philipp Hildebrand, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the University of St Gallen, St Gallen, 29 August 2005. The complete speech can be found in German on the Swiss National Bank’s website (www.snb.ch)  *  *  *  Openness was one of the major factors that made Switzerland one of the richest countries in the world. A significant portion of our industry, and one upon which our current prosperity is based, is the direct or indirect outcome of foreign expertise and the efforts of foreign entrepreneurs. These people were attracted to Switzerland – particularly in the 19th century – by its openness and its stable, liberal environment. Openness promotes competition, innovation and progress, thereby securing sustained prosperity. But Switzerland strayed from the straight and narrow when it began erecting barriers to competition – barriers that provided ever greater protection to its domestic market. The ensuing insulation of the domestic market is probably one of the main reasons for Switzerland's growth slump today. External trade policies are always domestic market policies as well. Consequently, external trade policies have instruments that can be effective in opening up the domestic market from outside. This openness to external trade is of utmost importance, therefore, not only for exporters, but also for the domestic market. Being open towards Europe and towards other trading blocks is not mutually exclusive.