believe efforts must be stepped up for greater integration of the regional market. in the longterm, it is desirable to replace the present patchwork of regional ftas by a single regionwide fta similar to nafta. meanwhile, in view of the recent global financial crisis, there is a growing need for regional financial cooperation if we are to avoid repeat crises in the future. as one link in this chain, the drive for regional financial cooperation was furthered in march of this year, when the bilateral foreign currency swap agreements under the chiang mai initiative were re - organized within the multilateral cooperative framework of the chiang mai initiative multilateralisation ( cmim ). korea, in a similar vein, has officially put forward construction of a “ global financial safety net ” as one item on the agenda of the g - 20 summit meetings. the various strands for construction of such a global financial safety net are already in place, in the form of the imf lending system and regional financial safety nets such as the cmim, and what is needed now is to link these strands more fully to form a coherent and systematic network. and provided that such a network can indeed be constructed, it is anticipated to contribute greatly to nipping putative financial crises in the bud, while containing the postfacto spread of those that do break out, as the arrangements will complement individual countries ’ self insurance efforts in the form of their foreign exchange reserve accumulations. in order to make active use of individual asian countries ’ funds, for example such foreign exchange holdings, we are also pressing ahead under the asian bond market initiative led by the asean + 3 to nurture a regional bond market. this has already given rise to some tangible results, such as the recent agreement to set up a regional credit guarantee investment facility. over and above all this, asian countries also need to take very active part in the building of the new international financial order now underway in the wake of the global financial crisis. closing words in concluding my address, i would like to emphasize three very important economic implications. firstly, the global economic crisis cannot be easily surmounted without the contribution of asia, especially the east asian economy. in other words, the east asian economy is becoming more responsible for world economic development, as the weight of the east asian economy in the world economy increases. meanwhile, even though it is not fair to totally attribute the global imbalances to the east asian economy, it is a fact that the global rebalancing

the asian economy revealed by the crisis the backdrop to this swift recovery staged by the asian economies lies in a number of strong attributes that they possess. firstly, asian economies have great dynamism. since the beginning of the 21st century, they have continued their dynamic economic growth, rising to become central forces in the world economy. basically, this comes from the epoch - making expansions in the extent of their market opening and liberalization. these policies have spurred freer movement and better allocation of resources, which is giving asian economies improved opportunities for higher economic growth due to greater competitiveness. what is more, the asian economy including china possesses a vast market, that is not yet saturated. this means that, as asian economies ’ incomes increase in the future, rapid growth of their domestic consumption markets is possible. for example, the increase in exports to china caused by its policy of expanding domestic demand has also served as a source of regional growth momentum. in addition, the asian economy holds abundant potential in terms of supply. there is plenty of capacity for a continual supply, on a large scale, of well - educated, disciplined and low cost human resources, in addition to asian countries ’ own considerable capital resources accumulated in the course of rapid economic growth until now. the asian economies, being still in their comparatively youthful stages of growth, generally differ much from the majority of advanced economies that have already matured. over and above this, taken together asian economies possess mutually complementary economic structures, as they are at various different stages of development. east asian intraregional trade has grown rapidly since the turn - of - the - century, with the formation of a vertically integrated division of labor centering on parts and components. the weight of intraregional trade among non - japan east asian countries has risen steeply, from 31. 7 % in 1990 to 42. 0 % in 2008. meanwhile, however, this recent financial crisis has also served to throw light on certain weaknesses of the asian economies. the asian economies here are the same as the category used in box 1 of the imf ’ s world economic outlook ( weo ) update on july 2010. the growth rates and growth contributions are from the weo ( april 2010 ) and the weo update ( july 2010 ). the external dependency of asian economies is very high, first of all, because of their pursuits of export - led growth strategies. this has meant that they have weak foundations for domestic driven growth, due to the relatively small sizes of their