It has been projected that every year, 44 million Asians are expected be added to the urban population. The opportunities generated by these trends are being further enhanced by greater regional economic and financial integration. The intensification in regional integration will not only contribute towards accelerating Asia’s growth momentum, but also further strengthen the resilience and stability of the region. The increased intra-regional trade and investment linkages within Asia over this recent decade have strengthened Asia’s economic resilience to external shocks. Indeed, the changing patterns of trade have allowed Asia to better withstand and emerge with an earlier recovery from this recent global financial crisis. It has also enabled Asia to be less susceptible to the ongoing deleveraging in the advanced economies. The more recent efforts have focused on strengthening regional financial integration - not only to sustain regional financial stability, but also to promote more efficient intermediation of funds in Asia to support the region’s growth prospects. It will allow for the effective rechannelling of Asia’s sizeable surplus funds towards productive investments in the region. Going forward, the intensification of regional integration will mutually reinforce the strengthening of domestic demand in Asia, thereby enhancing the region’s economic growth prospects. While regional economic and financial integration will intensify going forward, driven by the opportunities it presents and the conscious policies for a more cohesive region, Asia will continue to be integrated with the global economy and the international financial system. The external environment for Asia has, however, changed significantly.
Might this perhaps be a niche which a cooperative bank, setting up shop here, might be able to exploit? Furthermore, I think that perhaps I should modify an observation I made earlier: namely, that the need to set up a cooperative bank in Malta has never so far been felt. On second thoughts, perhaps, this is not entirely true. For one of our smaller banks, one that, not surprisingly, was founded by a Jesuit priest in 1910, actually did begin life as a cooperative society. It was originally called the Lega dell’ Apostolato della Preghiera, and its main aims were the setting up of a number of initiatives, all with an underlying social purpose. These included: a savings bank, intended to instil habits of thrift among the working classes; a mutual benefit society; a printing press; the publication of a Maltese language periodical; an evening school for the teaching of languages, music and crafts; an emigration bureau to help Maltese citizens wishing to settle in other countries; schemes for the free provision of food, medicines and medical care to the needy; a public lotto office; and a recreational club for members. It – or at least the savings bank part of its operations – only became a private limited company as recently as 1970, just before Malta’s first Banking Act was enacted. And this, perhaps, should give us a clue as to why we do not have a Maltese cooperative bank today.