•  The industry will benefit from reduced connectivity costs and the greater convenience of reporting to a Singapore-based infrastructure. These developments not only align us with global regulatory reforms, they allow us to strengthen our role as a derivatives and risk management hub in Asia. Offshore RMB The third area of opportunity that plays to Singapore’s pan-Asian strength is offshore RMB business. The RMB’s role in facilitating intra-regional trade and investment will only grow in the coming years. Singapore is in a strong position to facilitate greater RMB-denominated trade and investment in the ASEAN region. We are deepening liquidity, establishing key infrastructure, and working with industry to expand the range of RMB products and services in Singapore. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  •  In February this year, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s Singapore branch was designated Singapore’s RMB clearing bank. •  Just five days ago, MAS and the People’s Bank of China signed an enhanced bilateral currency swap agreement. This will enable MAS to provide RMB liquidity to banks in Singapore where needed. Deep talent pool The fourth and final pillar supporting Singapore’s financial centre is our deep talent pool. Over the years, we have invested heavily in building up the competencies of our financial sector workforce, providing training grants across a broad range of programmes under the Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF). Perhaps the most important of these programmes is the Financial Industry Competency Standards (FICS), a structured competency framework that is job-specific and practice-oriented.
Finally, the soon-to-be-implemented second phase of the financial sector master plan will further improve efficiency of the banking sector through reduction of regulatory costs, enhanced legal and information infrastructure, and new competition introduced in orderly manner through phased deregulation and liberalization. 2  BIS Review 118/2008  Fourth, the private sector has shown much resiliency and adaptability. For example, in response to the appreciation of the baht, exporters have made increasing uses of foreign exchange hedging instruments. At the same time, the increasingly diversified export market structure has provided Thai exporters with cushions against the current slowdown in major advanced economies. As another example but perhaps more relevant to today’s audience, our listed companies no longer over-leverage their balance sheets, turning instead to equity and retained earnings as major sources of funds. Fifth, Thailand is among the world’s top places when it comes to the ease of starting and operating businesses. The recent report, “Doing Business 2009,” by the World Bank upgraded Thailand by six places. Despite all the storms we have faced, we are now ranked at 13th place out of 181 countries (4th in Asia after Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan). According to the report, Thailand led other reformers in the region with improvements in four areas – Registering Property, Protecting Investors, Paying Taxes, and Trading across Borders. As investors, you may be interested to hear that one of the cited reform measures is amendments to the Thai Securities and Exchange Act to strengthen minority shareholder rights.