This very significant advance in terms of financial regulation should not obscure the progress that still needs to be made regarding the work underway, especially in the areas of market infrastructures (including for commodity markets), tighter regulation of activities included under the designation the “shadow banking system” and the behaviour of market players themselves. Once again, I underscore our collective responsibility, which is to ensure that all of the G-20 countries and, more widely, the international community as a whole apply international standards. Today’s discussions will be divided into four sessions. The first, chaired by Axel Weber, will examine the notion of disequilibrium after the crisis and will allow us to discuss the unpredictable evolution of global imbalances in the medium term, in the light of different assumptions concerning economic growth and savings trends in the different zones. Mario Draghi has agreed to chair the second session that will focus on questions related to supervision and coordination. As I have already said, the current context is characterised by the reform of global governance and regulation, a process given impetus by the G-20. Therefore, at this stage, it seems appropriate to explore topics such as the evolution of the role of international financial institutions and the accomplishments and future progress in harmonising global financial regulations. The third session, chaired by Michel Camdessus, should help us to gain further insight on what could, or should, be the role of central banks in a post-crisis environment.
Ambitious, of course, as it involves countries making explicit commitments on measures to be taken and discussing the outcomes with their peers, as part of what is known in G-20 jargon as the Mutual Assessment Process (MAP). Under the Korean presidency, whose efficacy and vision I would like to praise, an initial exercise resulted, in late 2010 in Seoul, in the adoption of a detailed country-by-country action plan and the commitment to tackle more specifically the global imbalances identified by the indicative guidelines. Far from me the idea of underplaying the difficulty of the exercise but the progress made so far is not inconsiderable and in this regard I am happy that the Ministers and Governors meeting in February in Paris resulted in agreement on a set of benchmark indicators. The second component concerns financial regulation. It is very clear that, in this area, we are past the stage of proposals and are now mainly concerned with consolidating the agreements approved by the Heads of State and Government in Seoul, especially the Basel III framework. The agreement that we achieved in 2010 made it possible to reconcile the need for far-reaching reforms with the need to reduce uncertainty relating to regulatory changes. Implementing these reforms in a harmonised framework capable of ensuring a genuine level playing field is now the crucial challenge, both from the point of view of our collective credibility and the overall effectiveness of the new mechanism.