Ladies and Gentlemen: The profound changes in the global economic and financial environment, has created a greater urgency for the Southeast Asian markets to achieve a greater degree of financial integration. This is so as to provide the scale and increased efficiency of the financial intermediation process. As the ASEAN economies move towards the formation of an economic-bloc by 2015, the pace of financial integration will need to accelerate, to better facilitate achieving this goal. The wide spread distribution of innovative hybrid financial products and regional cross selling activities will however increase the multi-dimensional dynamics of the markets and the risks across national borders. There will be increased complexity in identifying the risks which will in turn complicate the process of risk management. The increasingly integrated and liberalised markets will also expose our porous economies to greater external influences and to contagion risks. A higher level of vigilance is thus required to allow for pre-emptive policy measures in a timely manner. This will require adequate levels of cooperation among the regional regulators in addressing potentially contagion systemic risks and ensuring regional financial stability. The deepening of co-operation between the Nusantara's monetary and regulatory authorities is thus a key factor in the development of a robust integrated platform. Enhanced cooperation will promote greater resilience and reduce regional vulnerability to external developments. There are now various regional mechanisms in place to undertake regional surveillance, to facilitate the exchange of information, to enter into greater engagement on issues affecting the region and in developing regional financial markets.

Growth has been good and this has contributed to maintaining demand for working hours. At the same time, demographic developments have been relatively favourable and there have been ample unutilised resources in the economy following the crisis of the 1990s. However, when it comes to the labour supply, there is less reason to be optimistic about future developments. Developments in working hours have been held back during recent periods for structural reasons. The demographic situation, with a declining percentage of the population of working age, will deteriorate significantly in the long term, particularly after 2010. In addition, working hours per person may instead tend to decline in the long run when greater prosperity is taken advantage of to increase leisure time. The assessment in the October Inflation Report is that employment, labour force participation and mean working time will rise during the economic upturn forecast for the coming years and will contribute to an increase in the number of hours worked of approximately 1 per cent a year during the period. In a longer perspective, it is more realistic to assume that the labour supply will not make any contribution to growth. The simulations in, for instance, the Long-term Planning Commission’s most recent report, indicate that the number of hours worked on average will not show any significant change. However, the simulations show that the situation could be improved significantly, at least in the short term, if measures were taken to increase the labour supply.