factors such as government services, institutions, human capital, and natural environment, among others. the quality of less mobile factors of a region will determine the extent to which it can attract mobile factors for production such as physical capital and finance. in this respect, the recipe for success is very much the same between regional economic development within the national border and globalization beyond the national border. in a globalized world, economic success of an individual country would be determined largely by how much productive investment and finance it can attract. and the abundance or lack of its own mobile factors would be neither a constraint nor an advantage that a country would face in its economic development. likewise, regions within a country are competing with each other for investment resources available domestically or internationally, and their success depends on how attractive they bis central bankers ’ speeches are as the destination of investment. as such, the essence of such competition should focus on how to upgrade the quality of less mobile factors of each region. in this light, i should emphasize the leading role of local governments and also the central government in promoting regional economic development. to be specific, local governments should provide a clear vision and framework for sustainable development with detailed strategies to support business and human capital development. deregulations, supportive tax system, and administrative services would then be designed within the framework. the central government could incentivize regional development by delegating more authorities to local governments for their autonomy and, more importantly, by prioritizing the allocation of fiscal resources among local governments according at least in part to their supportive performance in regional economic development. it would be ideal if regional development strategies are closely nested with national development strategies in the first place. ladies and gentlemen, promoting economic development is always a highly complex task. it requires a myriad of inputs including knowledge, information, network, dedicated efforts of the people, and good luck as well. and we all know that economic development is an evolutionary process of learning and adaptation. today ’ s seminar is particularly meaningful in that we will learn from the rich experiences of our advanced peers, especially germany and japan. i believe that learning from others ’ experiences is as important and productive as learning by doing. and i am sure that this seminar will offer very useful guidance to our long journey to rebuild this region ’ s economy. i look forward to your active exchange of ideas and in - depth discussions. thank you once again for joining us today. bis central bankers ’ speeches

this worsening income inequality. notably, in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, now in progress, there are concerns that the number of unskilled jobs could decline rapidly. however, we cannot go against the flow of globalization and technological innovation. and in this regard, international organizations such as imf and world bank recommend that we should pursue “ inclusive ” growth, which ensures that many people can share the benefits of growth. more specifically, creating more jobs, increasing household incomes and expanding the social safety net are recognized as relevant policies for promoting inclusive growth. we can talk more about this topic during session two today, on “ inclusive growth and employment. ” another challenge that we must tackle is population aging, which is progressing rapidly now in many countries. population aging is likely to undermine economic growth as it reduces the labor supply and saps aggregate demand at the same time. for korea, in particular, as the pace of our population aging is rapid, but our preparations for it insufficient, the negative effects of population aging on growth seem likely to be substantial. in response to this, proper policy measures need 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches to be put in place, to ease the rapid drop in elderly consumption while we at the same time strengthen social support related to child birth and child care. the theme of our first session today was chosen to be “ population aging ”, which i think may suggest just how important and urgent this issue is. finally, we need to also address the issue of financial imbalances. since the global financial crisis, international efforts to ensure financial stability have strengthened, as seen in the introduction of global regulatory frameworks such as the basel iii accord and the otc derivatives market reforms. however, the financial imbalances in major emes have accumulated further, driven by greater household and corporate debt leverage in these economies. financial institutions have been seeking high - risk, high - return investments, in response to their worsening profitability due to the low interest rate environment. in korea, household debt is already at a historic high, and has been growing faster than incomes, so that it poses a major risk to financial stability. i hope that we will obtain valuable insights related to this tomorrow, in the special session led by the federal reserve bank of new york, on ways of securing financial stability and the role of monetary policy. so far, i have raised three policy issues — income inequality, population aging and financial imbalances. besides these, of course, there