Given your vast experience in the area of takaful, both domestically and globally, we believe that the industry players will provide valuable contribution towards the formulation of the IFSB international takaful standards. Your experience and inputs on issues are relevant to or have impact on the regulation and supervision of the takaful industry. Malaysia as takaful & retakaful hub Let me now turn to the final part of my address by sharing Malaysia's latest initiatives to strengthen its position as a takaful and retakaful centre. I.  MIFC initiatives  Malaysia aims at enhancing its inter-linkages with the global Islamic financial markets. Among these are its continuous efforts to not only develop the financial infrastructure of the takaful industry but to also implement measures and initiatives that will strengthen our position as an international takaful and retakaful centre. Besides allowing up to 49% of foreign equity participation in domestic takaful operators, the Malaysian Government has also launched an initiative known as the Malaysia International Islamic Financial Centre or MIFC. The MIFC initiatives are specifically undertaken by the collective efforts of the country's financial and market regulators, including Bank Negara Malaysia , the Securities Commission, the Labuan Offshore Financial Services Authority and Bursa Malaysia, together with the participation of representatives of the banking, takaful and capital market sectors. It is aimed at building greater intermediation linkages between East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East which will, in turn, further expand inter-regional trade and cross border investment flows.
Stefan Ingves: Policy rate setting and the monetary policy steering system Speech by Mr Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at Handelsbanken, Stockholm, 28 April 2008. *  *  *  During the autumn and spring the international financial markets have been marked by considerable uncertainty and turmoil. The situation has caused several central banks to take extraordinary measures, while for instance the Riksbank has not seen any reason to do so. One reason why central banks have acted differently is that the financial crisis has affected different countries to differing degrees. In Sweden we have not observed any major problems as a result of the financial crisis. This is linked to the fact that Swedish banks have not been exposed to the US subprime market to any great extent. Nor has there been any distrust of Swedish banks, which have a good capacity to deal with unexpected negative events. Ultimately, it is a question of a broad view that Swedish banks do not have problems. Another reason why central banks have acted differently is the differences in monetary policy steering systems between countries. It is therefore important to create an understanding of how the Swedish monetary policy steering system works. In my speech today I will talk about monetary policy from the production of the background material for making a decision until the decision has been implemented. I will focus on how an interest rate decision is put into practice.