Risk aversion is all very well for a time, but it doesn’t pay the rent! What we are now having to cope with are the economic consequences of the earlier financial disturbances. The inevitable counterpart of recession in much of the rest of the world is a sharp slowdown of net external demand – particularly for manufactures – in the industrial world. That has been reflected in growing weakness and falling business confidence in large parts of the manufacturing sector in both the United States and Europe. The prospective growth in world economic activity has already roughly halved – from its trend rate of about 4%. Unless this fall in net external demand is offset by sustained domestic demand growth in the industrial countries – unless, in other words, the industrial economies collectively accommodate the necessary improvement in the external current account position of the emerging countries, through a deterioration in their own current account positions – the prospects for world economic activity would be dismal. Happily, we start from a position of relatively low inflation throughout the industrial world and, faced with weakening external demand, we can afford to see higher offsetting domestic demand growth without jeopardising price stability. Indeed we need to see higher domestic demand growth than we otherwise would if overall demand is not to fall short of underlying supply capacity, and we need it, too, to offset the effects of weak world prices and of lower exchange rates in many emerging market producers on our own domestic price level.
Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir: SME Credit Bureau in the financial landscape of Malaysia Keynote address by Mr Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the SME Credit Bureau Seminar, Kuala Lumpur, 27 May 2008. *  *  *  It gives me great pleasure to be here with you this morning. I would like to express my appreciation to the Credit Guarantee Corporation or CGC, for inviting me to deliver the keynote address. It is encouraging to see many financial institutions and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the audience. The Bureau is also Malaysia’s first, under a joint initiative of CGC and Dun and Bradstreet Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., a subsidiary of Dun and Bradstreet Corporation in the US, which has vast experience in establishing and operating credit bureaus globally. The development of a strong and dynamic SME sector is a priority on the national economic agenda. The reasons for this are clear when one considers that 99.2% of the total business establishments in Malaysia are SMEs. The SME sector currently employs about 5.6 million people, and contributes about 32% of gross domestic product. Given its economic potential, the Government has accorded significant emphasis to developing and strengthening the SME sector, to enhance its contribution to the economy. The Government took a major stride forward in June 2004 with the establishment of the National SME Development Council.