For over 3 decades, Islamic finance has grown and developed and contributed significantly to the development of the real economy. Secondly, enhanced integration with the global market has enabled greater trade and financial linkages. Malaysia is now positioned at the forefront of international developments with increasing connectivity between financial centres, and more cross-border Islamic financial transactions. Our sukuk market constitutes more than 50% of global sukuk outstanding for the past 16 years. Malaysia as an international Islamic finance marketplace offers an attractive and facilitative platform for foreign issuers to tap our domestic sukuk market. There have been  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  various issuances of multicurrency sukuk in US Dollar, Singapore Dollar, Chinese Renminbi and Japanese Yen. There are also stronger bilateral ties with various countries such as the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Turkey, Indonesia and Japan. These interlinkages open up greater opportunities to introduce and strategically position Islamic finance services globally while providing opportunities for meaningful participation of our local players as lead arrangers for some of the global sukuk issuances. The gains are also extended to our ancillary service providers that were able to establish greater connections with the international market. Thirdly, Malaysia's pioneering initiatives and thought leadership in Islamic finance has enabled the country to advance innovation in the Islamic finance industry. On the regulatory front, the modernisation of the regulatory framework through the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 (IFSA) provides an opportunity and space for Islamic financial institutions to offer new products and services.

The MPC therefore decided to cut the policy rate to provide as insurance to the economy in the face of greater downside risks to growth. With firmly anchored inflation expectations, the Bank of Thailand can today give weight to stabilizing economic developments when setting the interest rate. However, should the outlook for inflation, growth, or financial stability change in the future period, there will be room for maneuver to counteract such developments through monetary policy, as well as other policy tools in an appropriate mix deemed most suitable for achieving the overall macroeconomic stability. Limitations of monetary policy Let me now turn to a topic that I would like to highlight today, that is, the limits to what monetary policy can achieve. The global financial crisis has placed far greater demands on monetary policy around the world. In major economies where other macroeconomic policy tools are being impaired, monetary policy was under enormous pressure to support the economy. Central banks responded by expanding dramatically their traditional role as lenders of last resort and came up with innovative, unconventional ways to stretch beyond what monetary policy can normally do. In emerging markets, given large crisis repercussions in terms of excessive capital flows, monetary policy was at times expected to respond to external developments in dealing with global spillovers. Overall, monetary policy has been pushed into situations and actions that were previously unimaginable. Efforts by many central banks to overstretch its normal capacity may have led the public to expect too much from monetary policy.