While conditions in the world economy have improved, the growth prospects going forward is expected to remain modest for an extended period of time. Several important lessons have emerged from this recent global financial crisis. The first relates to the exponential expansion of the financial system which did not commensurate with the expansion in economic activity. This resulted in a significant disconnect between the financial sector and its role in serving the economy. A number of factors contributed to the weakening of the link between financial intermediation and productive economic activity. Deregulation had opened up new opportunities for financial institutions to expand the scope of their activities. Increased competition, reinforced by advances in technology intensified the pace of innovation. And, the extended period of low interest rates in an environment of low inflation also prompted greater risk taking which in turn contributed to the significant build up of financial imbalances. The role of leverage in the global financial crisis, both in the public and private sectors, was also a particularly important contributing factor. It has also become a factor that is now holding back growth. At the height of the global financial crisis, the total leverage in the major industrial economies increased significantly. In the US, private sector leverage alone had reached over 200 percent of GDP in 2008. Other reports place the average debt level to GDP of major advanced economies at over 300 percent in 2010.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Islamic finance – financial stability, economic growth and development Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Prize Lecture on “Islamic finance – financial stability, economic growth and development”, Jeddah, 27 November 2013. *  *  *  It is my honour to be invited to deliver this lecture on Islamic Finance: Financial Stability, Economic Growth and Development, here in Jeddah. I wish to thank the Islamic Development Bank for the invitation. The Islamic Development Bank has been pioneering and instrumental in the development of Islamic finance and has been an inspiration in driving its progress and evolution. It is indeed a privilege for me to be part of this journey, and to have witnessed the increasing dynamism of the Islamic financial industry amidst a highly challenging economic and financial international environment. Global financial and economic adjustments My remarks today will focus on the relevance of Islamic finance in modern market economies, taking into account the knowledge that we have today about the vulnerabilities of finance, its causes and its wider economic ramifications. Five years on after the global financial crisis erupted, the most pressing challenge confronting the world economy continues to be securing financial stability and generating growth and employment. While regulatory reforms both at the global and national levels have been extensive to strengthen financial systems, there has been less progress on the recovery in growth.