We are also particularly pleased to have with us, His Lordship the Chief Justice who has graced this occasion and by doing so has unambiguously displayed the commitment of Sri Lanka’s judiciary to this massive effort. Our effort against money laundering and terrorist financing cannot be made by one or two persons only, or by one or two agencies only. It has to be a co-ordinated and concentrated effort that needs the support of a wide range of people, both nationally and internationally. In that context, Sri Lanka’s commitment is clear to everyone, and we are particularly pleased to have you with us, the Honourable Chief Justice. My dear friends, the fight against terrorism cannot only be on the military field or battle ground. In my view, the fight has to be on four different fronts simultaneously. Although it is vitally important, one cannot defeat terrorism by a military effort only. To successfully deal with terrorism, we need a diplomatic offensive also. Diplomatically, we need to ensure that cohesive steps are taken so that, together, countries can meet this challenge. At the same time, the fight has to be on the international media front as well. Therefore, a media campaign in all parts of the world against terrorism is also very important. That is something that the world has clearly recognized today, and internationally, we see a greater coordination in the media in dealing with terrorism. The other important front in this war against terror is the stopping of financing for terrorism.
One visitor actually asked me point-blank when I received him in my office at IFC Two: “Give me the name of the architect of your building, and I am confident that we can build a taller and bigger building in order to turn my city into an IFC.” Of course, we all know that most international financial centres have very imposing, often elegant high-rise office towers. But building an international financial centre is not about having skyscrapers taller than anyone else’s. Nor is it about having super computers or optical fibres that can transmit data and information faster than your competitors’. Then what is it all about? In the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, there are 12 categories of benchmarks against which major financial centres are assessed to determine their overall rankings or competitiveness. There are items relating to the physical infrastructure, such as airports, railroads and optic-fibre cables, which I would label as “hardware”. But they are not the deciding factor in differentiating the average financial centre from the top IFCs. Of course, an IFC needs to have first-class hardware. After all, IFCs intermediate financial flows and in order to do that well they have to provide a high degree of connectivity linking up a  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  large pool of clients and moneys from all over the world. However, it is relatively easy to build or copy hardware. There are many architectural firms that have a proven track record in designing and developing world-class airports and buildings.