A recent innovative arrangement introduced this year is the risk-sharing arrangements between the government and banks to provide opportunities for the lower income and younger segments of the population to own homes and thus accumulate wealth at an earlier age. Another important form of wealth accumulation is the collective investment schemes such as unit trusts. The pooling of savings provides economies of scale, access to professional investment managers, as well as a diversified investment portfolio. In Malaysia, this was initially promoted through the establishment of government sponsored national savings scheme (Amanah Saham Nasional). Participation of the average household has now paved the way for the growth in the private unit trust industry. The formation of such national savings schemes has also contributed to the development of an institutional investor base in Malaysia that has been able to mobilize substantial volumes of savings. The mobilization of these funds provides the potential for funding of businesses and the corporate sector and for project financing including for infrastructure development. As SMEs and micro enterprises form the majority of business enterprises in most countries, and as they contribute significantly to GDP, employment and wealth creation, efficient access to finance is critical. The Malaysian experience to address this has been the establishment of the Credit Guarantee Corporation to assist viable SMEs with inadequate track record to access financing by providing guarantees and credit enhancements for SME financing. The credit evaluation is carried out by banks, and by the CGC.

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: Innovative financing for transformation Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Langkawi International Dialogue 2011: Innovative Financing for Transformation, Putrajaya, 19 June 2011. *  *  *  The world is transforming. Our motivation for accelerating our own pace of transformation is to ensure that we will be able to effectively participate in this new economic and financial environment, and in the process, maximize our potential performance. Central to this is having a well functioning financial system and the right financial policies. The recent financial crisis in the developed world has shown that when things have gone wrong in the financial system, the consequences have been catastrophic. Instead of creating wealth – it destroys wealth, instead of generating employment – it results in job losses, instead of facilitating economic progress – it derails growth and development. It is my great honour and pleasure to speak at this 2011 Langkawi International Dialogue on Innovative Financing for Transformation. The overarching objectives of economic transformation is surely to generate sustainable and balanced growth, to improve living standards, to create employment opportunities and to achieve a more inclusive development. This decade has however seen how innovative financing in several of the developed economies have fuelled excessive levels of leverage that have resulted in deeply indebted private and public sectors, which in turn have become highly destabilizing to their financial systems and to their economies.