Growth in trade between ASEAN and GCC have resumed postcrisis and is expected to receive a further boost with the ASEAN-GCC trade and investment framework agreement and FTA. I therefore urge all parties to work swiftly towards a mutually-beneficial conclusion. Reforming finance to sustain growth 8. The financial sector has encountered major turbulence and headwinds as a result of the financial crisis and has de-leveraged extensively in response to a more risk-sensitive environment. Significant changes in financial regulation are underway. Global regulators under the auspices of the Financial Stability Board, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, are working to put fractured financial markets back on a sounder footing. These changes include increasing the quality and quantity of risk-based capital, introducing new global liquidity requirements, and developing a fresh regulatory approach towards systemically important financial institutions. Such reforms should bring about greater stability to the global financial system. 9. These changes will not be dramatic for Singapore-based financial institutions because MAS’ regulation and supervision have been sound, prudent and effective. This has helped our financial system to remain resilient through the crisis. Last week, MAS communicated our long-standing approach in the latest monograph – “Tenets of Effective Regulation” where we reiterated that our approach to regulatory development is outcomefocused, risk appropriate and impact sensitive. MAS’ policies and actions need to be clear and consistent as well as responsive to industry and market changes and economic cycles.
We already did the same successfully under the SMP, which has now come to an end. Barely a year after the announcement of OMTs, the positive effects are obvious, and this development has certainly also been enabled by the reform efforts as a whole. First, banks and firms regained access to the capital market. Second, the spread between the yields on Spanish and German ten-year government bonds fell from more than 6 percentage points in July 2012 to just under 3 percentage points in May 2013. At the same time, the premium on Italian bond yields was halved, down from more than 5 percentage points. One further sign of the normalisation of developments – one that is important for German savers – is the fact that yields on German government bonds increased by around one-quarter of a percentage point over the same period. Third, TARGET balances – which are an important indicator of fragmentation within the euro area – have declined noticeably. They are down by € billion – around 25% – compared with their peak in 2012, so they are now back at the level observed at the end of 2011. In conclusion, we can see that the announcement of OMTs significantly contributed to the stabilisation of the situation. Firms, banks and households throughout the euro area benefited from this measure. Destructive extreme scenarios were ruled out and the damaged transmission mechanism was, to a certain extent, repaired.