I want to briefly sketch the journey of Singapore’s insurance industry from writing pure domestic risks to becoming a regional underwriting hub in just ten years. I will then share our vision and strategies for the next phase of the industry’s growth – to become a global insurance marketplace at the heart of Asia. The journey to a regional underwriting hub In the early days, the Singapore insurance industry was focused on servicing domestic business, with life insurance being the mainstay. In fact, MAS had adopted a closed-door policy to direct insurers since 1990. In 2000, MAS liberalised the insurance industry, lifting the closed-door policy on direct insurers and the 49% foreign shareholding limit in locally owned direct insurers. Singapore’s development as a regional insurance hub took off. •  Since 2000, offshore business has been on a steady uptrend, growing an average of 13% per annum to $ in 2012. The share of offshore non-life business has increased from 50% in 2000 to 65% in 2012. •  Major insurance groups across different segments of the industry, from direct insurers to reinsurers and brokers, have sited their regional operating and business hubs here. Today, Singapore is recognised as the leading reinsurance hub in Asia. Amongst the top 25 reinsurers in the world, 16 have regional hubs here. The market has built up significant expertise in specialty insurance, namely marine, energy, catastrophe, credit and political risks. For example, Singapore is the second largest market for structured credit and political risk worldwide after London.
Ian Plenderleith: Current issues in UK monetary policy  Speech by Mr Ian Plenderleith, an Executive Director of the Bank of England, to the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce on 26 July 2000. *  *  *  If you look at the performance of the UK economy as a whole, there is a great deal from which we can draw encouragement. Since the early 1990s, we have enjoyed what by any standards has been an impressive period of continued growth in output, employment and living standards. The sustained growth in output has been achieved despite the downturn in Asia in 1997-98, which, accentuated by the crisis in Russia, spread to the emerging market economies as a whole and produced a sharp weakening in external demand felt by all the industrialised countries. With the help of the rapid steps we took then to cut interest rates, we have seen a strong recovery in activity in the UK economy last year and continuing growth this year. Equally, we can draw encouragement from the steady rise in employment that has accompanied this sustained growth in output. The improvement has been shared right across the UK: rates of employment vary from region to region, but all regions have shared a rise in employment rates. What is particularly encouraging is that this substantial rise in employment rates has been achieved in the face of considerable changes in the business environment - for example, shifts in demand and in consumer taste, advances in technology and intensified competition.