enhance ppp standards, and improve project governance and delivery. a number of international and regional efforts have been made on this front, including but not limited to the establishment of the global infrastructure hub by g20, the launch of the global infrastructure facility by world bank, and the setting up of the new asian infrastructure investment bank focusing on promoting infrastructure development in the region. to contribute to the concerted efforts by the international community, the hong kong sar government has recently asked the hong kong monetary authority to establish an infrastructure financing facilitation office ( iffo ). as its name suggests, iffo aims to provide a platform to bring together key stakeholders, including developing countries, multilateral development banks, potential investors and financiers ( e. g. private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, banks etc ), project developers such as corporations capable of developing and operating large - scale infrastructure, and professional service providers. through information exchange, experience sharing and capacity building, we hope to facilitate more efficient and sustainable infrastructure investment flows to developing asia. bis central bankers ’ speeches iffo will seek to collaborate with other development partners in the region and so far we have received support from a number of them including adb. if everything goes smoothly, iffo will be formally inaugurated this summer. as an international financial and business center in the region, hong kong, china has long been playing an active role in supporting infrastructure financing in asia. by leveraging on our unique position as an ifc, we hope the iffo initiative will help mobilise private sector financing and bridge the gap between investors and viable projects. we look forward to working closely with our partners in this process. thank you. bis central bankers ’ speeches

prudence, and a great credit to hong kong's banking system. we also seem to have achieved a good balance in the relationship between the supervisor and the banking system. an excellent example of how that balance has contributed to banking stability is the 70 % loan - to - value policy for residential mortgage lending by banks. this policy, now a cornerstone of our prudential arrangements, pre - dates even the foundation of the hkma and evolved out of a productive dialogue between hkab and the supervisor. it has survived strong political pressure for relaxation and market pressure for innovative credit risk transfer through securitisation. the policy – now nearly two decades old – fits in well with the macroprudential approach which, particularly in the light of the recent crisis, supervisors in other jurisdictions now consider to be essential to banking stability. the fact that no such policy existed in the advanced financial systems is remarkable enough. but what is more remarkable is the level of initiative of the hong kong banking sector itself in seeing the importance of systemic stability and giving it precedence over the profitability of individual institutions. we might therefore observe, in the light of this and of our experience over the past year, that hong kong has got it broadly right in the relationship between the supervisor and the banking system. however, this should not lead us to the complacent conclusion that there is nothing much that needs changing. and indeed, no such conclusion is in our minds. both the carse report and the recent reports to the financial secretary on the sale of lehmanrelated products see room for development and improvement in the way we carry out our work. quite apart from our own hong kong - specific initiatives, there are movements for reform at the international level, resulting from a very different experience in the more developed economies, which we cannot ignore. this point brings me to my second observation : the need to move with the times. the past year has seen a plethora of ideas and proposals for reforming financial regulations, and interventions by government that were unprecedented in their nature and scale. even in economies less deeply affected by the latest crisis, including hong kong, it has been necessary to deepen government involvement, for example in more extensive deposit guarantees or in more intense supervision of banks'risk management – although it is gratifying that so many of the tools that we have been able to rely on, including the apparatus and contingency arrangements for ensuring liquidity, have been developed in a pre - emptive rather than