These activities have taken many forms ranging from equity and non-equity business collaboration, regulatory cooperation in setting the global development blueprint, information exchange and building consensus on issues for international prudential standards development, to intergovernmental memorandums of understanding for collaborative developmental initiatives in Islamic finance, and many others. BIS Review 30/2007  1  Ladies and Gentlemen, As Islamic finance continues to make significant inroads in the international financial markets with expanding scale, growing magnitude and greater sophistication, a critical need emerges for an expanded discourse on the developments and emerging issues with its global relevance and impact, of interest to all its major stakeholders. This is the first time that Bank Negara Malaysia has organized a full-scale, multi-disciplinary, international event of this nature on Islamic finance. These sessions include the annual Investors & Issuers Forum, and Financial Regulators Forum and the biannual Banking and Financial Law School. It is our hope that participants will benefit from any of the parallel sessions of their interests and have increased opportunities for network building among the widening groups of stakeholders participation in the Forum. These forums have been designed to provide dynamic and interactive formats to encouraging open and inclusive dialogues that foster a greater collective understanding in Islamic finance. Let me record our appreciation to the many distinguished speakers from various international institutions, financial practitioners, legal fraternity, regulatory bodies and other prominent thought leaders in Islamic finance.
It is our sincere hope that this global forum will be rewarding and may the collective wisdom derived from the deliberations lead to more collective actions that will be to our increased mutual benefits. Let me once again express our appreciation to Yang Amat Berhormat Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi for his presence here this afternoon and for accepting to deliver the keynote address at our Forum today. Thank you. 2  BIS Review 30/2007