into meps, immediately allowing the public to withdraw funds from a larger network of atms nationwide. in 2005, the financial industry collaborated to adopt the emv chip technology to enhance the security and interoperability of domestic payment cards. this eradicated counterfeit card fraud and boosted public confidence in the use of payment cards. as a result, payment card spending increased by almost threefold from rm47. 5 billion in 2006 to rm141. 6 billion in 2016. more recently, such collaboration can be observed in the industry - wide migration to adopt pin and emv contactless technology to further enhance the security and convenience of domestic payment cards. throughout these developments, appropriate policy interventions played an important role to encourage ‘ co - opetition ’ in the payment market – in particular, to overcome the natural resistance of banks to collaborate due to a perceived loss of competitive advantage if they do so. fostering ‘ co - opetition ’ will therefore continue to be a key policy thrust of the bank. in the near term, the bank will be issuing a framework on interoperable mobile payments to foster ‘ co - opetition ’ in the mobile payment landscape. the framework will promote open and fair access to shared payment infrastructures for both banks and eligible non - bank entities. 2 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches this will be supported by interoperability standards and proportionate risk management controls that aim to encourage competition while facilitating collaboration at the infrastructure level. banks and operators of shared payment infrastructures such as myclear and meps are encouraged to publish open application programming interfaces ( or apis ) to drive continuous innovation in value - added payment services by both banks and non - bank fintech players. merger of myclear and meps to strengthen industry alignment and spearhead the transformation of the payment landscape today, i am also pleased to announce an agreement has been reached between bank negara malaysia and the industry to merge myclear and meps which operate malaysia ’ s shared payment infrastructures for wholesale and retail payment transactions. the merged entity will be called ‘ payments network malaysia ’, or ‘ paynet ’ in short. paynet will be jointly owned by bank negara malaysia and the financial services industry. it will embark on modernising our payment infrastructure. it will assume a key role in ensuring that malaysia ’ s payment systems are future - proofed and always at the cutting edge of payment efficiency, innovation and competition. importantly, the merger will further strengthen the alignment of

this more evident than in the automobile sector, where global demand has fallen by around 20 per cent since august and production has declined equally sharply. global trade has fallen away, driven by these trends in demand and also a significant disruption in trade finance. for many of the world ’ s largest economies, the contraction in output in the last quarter of 2008 was the sharpest in decades. nor is the weakness confined to the major economies. emerging economies around the world, relatively little affected by the problems in the major economies until september, are now suffering the effects of both the weaker demand in the developed world and the shock to domestic demand as their own citizens respond in the same way to the financial turmoil. many indicators for asian economies stepped down abruptly in the last few months of 2008. china ’ s economy recorded little gdp growth in the last quarter, and industrial production declined for several months. there are some tentative indications of a turn for the better in china in some of the most recent data, though it is too soon to know yet whether this will continue. it is all this news that bodies such as the imf have factored into their growth forecasts for 2009, which put global gdp growth at just half of 1 per cent, which would be a very weak outcome. as recently as october, the forecast was 3 per cent. needless to say, this amounts to a very major change in the international environment for australia. as one metric, our terms of trade, which rose by 65 per cent over five years, look like they will fall by up to 20 per cent during the next year. that would still leave them historically high, and several important commodity prices have stabilised over the past couple of months after steep falls. at these levels, the stronger mining companies will still earn good profits. but the confidence seen in mid 2008 has given way to a much more sober outlook, at least for the near term. internationally, the availability of risk capital has declined. local businesses are anticipating tougher times ahead. measures of business confidence have diminished sharply. firms are altering their strategies quite quickly, looking to conserve cash, pay down debt and reduce costs. they are also experiencing tougher credit conditions. indications are that investment plans, which had been exceptionally strong in the middle of last year, are being quickly curtailed. households, for their part, are affected by a significant loss of wealth, especially over the latter part of last year, and are understandably tending to save more and, in many