lay the foundation for sustainable and diversified growth. 5. asia will become increasingly important for the gcc as the patterns of trade, investment and consumption shift from the west to the east. to reap greater benefits from these highly dynamic and fast - expanding regions, we should press on towards the goal of growing connectivity and deepening economic cooperation between our two regions. we sources : monetary authority of singapore, consensus economics inc, weighted by shares in singapore ’ s nodx. imf, regional economic outlook : asia and pacific, april 2011. asean - 5 comprises indonesia, malaysia, thailand, philippines and singapore. bis central bankers ’ speeches need to create stronger linkages in the vital areas of trade and investment, business as well as financial linkages. there are several ways to achieve this : 6. firstly, the asian development bank ( adb ) has identified growing south - south economic linkages via trade and investment as a potential driver of global growth and emphasized the need for policymakers to further reduce barriers to trade and investment4. trade between asia, middle east, africa and latin america has developed over the past two decades but still remains a relatively small 17 % proportion of world trade. asia ’ s share of total trade with the gcc grew from just 10 % in 1980 to 36 % in 20095. having identified this as a priority area, asean and gcc foreign ministers met in singapore last year and agreed upon a plan of action to boost cooperation in trade and investment, among other areas. islamic finance can potentially play a part in facilitating more trade between asia and the middle east with the involvement of more global and islamic banks from both regions. 7. secondly, the high level of savings and wealth accumulation in the gcc and asia should also be mobilized by the financial sector and channeled towards more productive economic uses in both regions, especially to meet the demand for national infrastructure such as power plants, hospitals, roads and rail networks. the adb institute estimated that asia will need us $ 8. 2 trillion in infrastructure investment between 2010 and 2020. seeing the large gap between the demand and supply of infrastructure investment, the adb and islamic development bank ( idb ) have jointly set up a us $ 500m islamic infrastructure fund in 2009. several asean countries such as malaysia and indonesia have also outlined plans to tap global islamic funding for their infrastructure projects. 8. thirdly, given the many ambitious initiatives and plans in the gcc for new industrial developments and infrastructure projects, the middle east

jean - pierre roth : impact of the global crisis on switzerland introductory remarks by mr jean - pierre roth, chairman of the governing board of the swiss national bank, at the schweizerisch - deutscher wirtschaftsclub, frankfurt am main, 2 march 2009. the complete speech can be found in german on the swiss national bank ’ s website ( www. snb. ch ). * * * what started as a financial crisis has now become a global economic crisis. although the swiss economy was in a very sound state before the crisis set in, switzerland ’ s standing as a financial centre, its real economy and its public finances have all been strongly affected by the global turmoil. recovery will depend largely on the development of the us economy. despite having reached worldwide proportions by now, the crisis was not triggered by globalisation itself. rather, it is the result of a lack of discipline in the industrialised nations. monetary policy today must contribute to the stabilisation of the financial system and the real economy without losing sight of its principal task, which is to maintain price stability.