Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus: Reshaping Malaysia's future - setting the goal for greater governance and transparency Keynote address by Ms Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the 10th International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing "Reshaping Malaysia's Future – Setting the goal for greater governance and transparency", Kuala Lumpur, 30 October 2018. * * * A very good morning to all of you. It is my pleasure to address all of you today at this very important conference. Financial crime. Terrorism financing. Corruption and money laundering. These are heavy words that carry the feelings of outrage and displeasure, amongst others. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that every year globally, a staggering amount of USD2.6 trillion is stolen through corruption. Yet, I suspect, in reality, figures like these are so large that many may find it hard to relate to it. To put it in perspective, the figure is around eight times larger than the Malaysian economy. Let us also take the UN Sustainable Development Goals that aims to improve the lives of the poor, improve governance and address inequality. Some estimate that it will take around USD5-7 trillion to meet all the SDGs. This represents 2-3 years’ worth of money lost to corruption. In other words, the money lost through financial crimes is a devastating opportunity cost, draining the resources that could have been used to permanently uplift the lives of billions in this world.
The challenge facing the UK economy in the years ahead is to ensure that the private sector can once again become an engine of job creation and growth as the public sector rebalances, repeating the positive experience of the 1990s recovery. 6  Public sector net borrowing was 7.7% of GDP in 1993/4, moving towards a surplus of 0.5% in 1998/9, a swing of 8.2% in the public sector financial balance as a share of GDP. The Budget plans show a 9 percentage point swing – from borrowing of 10.1% in the current financial year to 1.1% in 2015/6. 7  From Q3 1991 to Q4 1998, public sector employment fell by 827,000 – a fall of around 14% of the total. The Office for Budget Responsibility projects a fall in 600,000 over the present consolidation, a fall of around 10%. BIS Review 134/2010  7  There is, however, one important difference between the situation now and the mid-1990s in that the flow of finance to support the growth of private sector businesses has been affected by the impact of the financial crisis on the banking sector. For many businesses and individuals, the terms on which they can access lending are much less favourable than before the crisis. In one sense, this is very appropriate in that credit was too freely available in some parts of the financial system in the mid-2000s and this created the conditions for the global credit boom which preceded the financial crisis.