The current outsourcing and off-shoring trend would also present opportunities for us. One estimate is that two million jobs would be created in lower-cost locations like India and China over the next 5 years. While we cannot compete with India and China on cost, we can compete for processing activities which are mission critical and of higher value-added. In the past year, major financial institutions have relocated higher-end middle and back-office operations here. These institutions take the view that Singapore’s developed infrastructure, reliability, and skilled manpower make us more suitable for these time-sensitive and mission-critical functions. In the banking sector, we have gone from 7 local banks to 3 over the last 5 years. Singapore banks have grown larger and stronger, and they are continuing to build up their regional footprints. As a regulator, MAS is happy that they have made progress strengthening management teams and building up risk management systems. Last year, one rating agency even ranked Singapore banks as being among the strongest not only in Asia but in the whole world.5 However, by international standards, the three local banking groups are still rather small, despite having made some regional acquisitions and undergone domestic consolidation. The largest of them, DBS Group, ranks only 96th in the world in terms of assets. The banks are also mainly Singapore banks, rather than regional players with strong presence in several countries. Possibilities for domestic growth are limited, other than by further consolidation.
Davíð Oddsson: Review of recent economic and financial developments in Iceland Address by Mr Davíð Oddsson, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Central Bank of Iceland, at the Bank's annual meeting, Reykjavik, 30 March 2007. *  *  *  Chairman of the Board of Governors, Prime Minister, Ministers of Government, Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the Board of Governors I welcome you all to this, the 46th annual meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland. At the Bank’s last annual meeting it was announced that the Government of Iceland and the Central Bank had been in consultation on the need to boost the Bank’s foreign reserves substantially and also to improve its capital position. Their motivation for doing so was not, however, that either position had weakened, nor that the Bank no longer met the benchmarks for capital and foreign reserves. For a long time the minimum foreign reserve has been set at an amount equivalent to three-months’ imports, and this level has always been ensured. However, the major changes – which could even be called revolutionary – that have taken place in Iceland’s financial sector over a relatively few years prompted the Board of Governors to regard it as prudent to take other factors into account, such as the size and scope of the financial sector. As far as the capital position is concerned, it can be said that clear guidelines are to be found in recent legislation on the Central Bank.