On behalf of the MIFC Executive Committee, I would like to express my appreciation to the members of the panel of jury for the Royal Award for Islamic Finance which is led by Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun Musa Hitam, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia and also to the members of the taskforce that was chaired by Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, Chairman of the Securities Commission, who oversaw the establishment of this prestigious award. It is my sincere hope that this Royal Award will be an inspiration to the global development of Islamic finance. 2  BIS Review 141/2010
The second salient feature is Asia's high rate of savings, exceeding 30% of gross national product (GNP) in most Asian economies, which have enabled the private and public sectors to fund capital accumulation from domestic sources. While the private sector focuses on investing in physical capital and adopting new technologies to raise productive efficiency, governments across Asia place commensurate emphasis on developing infrastructure, such as roads, ports and utilities, as well as on healthcare and education. The combination of efficient capital and productive labour in turn generates more higher-value-added activity, thereby accelerating economic growth. Third, the Asian economies have adopted an outward-oriented development path, rather than depended only on domestic demand, to expand industrial production. Just five decades ago, Asia was amongst the world's poorest regions. Asia recognised that its development process would be slow and marginal should low-income-driven domestic demand be relied upon to incrementally stimulate industrial activity. It accelerated the movement of resources from low-productivity traditional activity to high-productivity modern activity. Most of Asia, early among the developing economies, has been very open to international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), resulting in Asia to be rapidly integrated with the global economy. The trade volume of Asia as a share of total world trade increased from 14% in 1970 to 22% in 1990, and subsequently to 28% in 2008. Furthermore, Asia has also been a major recipient of FDI, with FDI flows into Asia increasing from 7% of total global FDI to 20% in 2007.