More foreign investors are likely to participate in our markets when Singapore Government Securities are included in the World Government Bond Index next January. Our market surveillance must broaden as the mix of market participants becomes more diverse. As the volume of trade in Singapore dollar securities increases, our management of the Singapore dollar will become more challenging. We must constantly review and improve our intervention strategies and our communication with the market. We must also continue to strengthen our regulatory and supervisory framework, in line with changes in the industry and evolving risk issues. As our local players go regional and expand their activities, we must take our approach to consolidated and integrated supervision to the next level. We will enhance our framework for supervising local banks’ securities and asset management operations overseas, as well as fine-tune the framework for the integrated supervision of banks engaging in capital markets and insurance activities. In addition, we have to co-operate more closely with other regulators in order to adequately supervise the institutions operating in our markets. As more financial institutions turn to outsourcing, we will review the need to supervise companies providing significant outsourcing services to our institutions. With the convergence in product offerings by different types of financial institutions, we need to harmonise our regulatory requirements and supervisory practices to prevent arbitrage. We are currently developing a common risk assessment framework for banks, insurance companies and capital markets intermediaries.
For example, we will not entertain attempts at fishing for banking information and other spurious requests. As with all major international financial centres, customer confidentiality is a cardinal principle of our financial sector. It will only be lifted by a Singapore court order and only if the safeguards set out in the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act are met. These provisions do not shield criminal activities. Singapore will continue to participate actively in the fight against crime, money laundering and terrorist financing. Going forward, we will work to deepen the sharing of knowledge and practices with jurisdictions that approach us for assistance through training programmes. We believe that we can make contributions on economic and financial issues, particularly those pertaining to the region. For instance, our unique monetary policy framework has proved to be sufficiently robust and flexible to cope with shocks in the external environment. We are keen to share our experience through research papers, policy dialogues and seminars with developing countries which are experimenting with intermediate exchange rate regimes. IV. Conclusion  Let me conclude. I have outlined our priorities for the next five years. Our emphasis is on action. We must translate the seminar findings and conclusions into a set of practical initiatives and implement them. We must be prepared to take calculated risks and adapt as we go along. This will require not just hard work and dedication, but also a spirit of openness, inquiry and enterprise. I am confident that together we can achieve our goals for MAS and Singapore.