industry would to a large extent depend upon the capability of those working in the industry - their skill set, expertise and competency. unfortunately for all of us, similar to other emerging economies, there is a scarcity of qualified and well trained personnel to meet the growing and increasingly complex needs of the industry. therefore human capital development should not be viewed as an expense but as an investment for the future. without such investment, our insurance industries will not be able to quickly make the leap forward and we risk losing the opportunities to players from more sophisticated economies that are ready on the sides to take advantage of our inadequacies. on this note, i am pleased to note that in the short span since its establishment in december 2004, the asean insurance training and research institute, or aitri, has successfully conducted technical training and seminars on insurance for over 200 insurance regulators, supervisors and practitioners to date. aitri has also received recognition from international organisations such as the international association of insurance supervisors and first initiative for the training programmes that were conducted. despite its limited capacity and funding, aitri has continued to serve as the regional network centre for insurance education and research, providing opportunities for regulators to meet, learn and share experiences. i wish to urge asean countries to leverage on aitri as the regional platform for greater interaction and collaboration and continue to provide support to enable the institute to expand and play the role expected of it. in addition to building capacity within our own respective economies, there is great potential for the asean insurance industry to increase our competitiveness as a region in order to retain a greater share of the insurance business particularly in reinsurance and underwriting of large, specialised risk which traditionally flows out of the region. in order to increase our capacity and expertise to underwrite such risks, greater collaboration in the form of technical assistance and information sharing are important. great value can be derived from the pooling of experiences and resources to develop our own probability models which will enable us to better price risks based on the unique characteristics of our region. through such collaboration, the ability for the insurance industries in asean to underwrite and reinsure risks to serve the needs of the asean businesses and individuals can be significantly enhanced. in this regard, i would like to encourage the industry to work together with the regulators to explore ideas to build our capabilities and capacities as well as enhance our competitiveness towards developing a robust insurance industry in the region. to further support the development of asean's insurance industry, initiatives to harmonise standards across

electronic payments, should take into account the need for an incentive structure that promotes the increased use of e - payments. in recent years, several notable developments in e - payments in malaysia have taken place. following its introduction in 2000, the inter - bank giro system, an electronic credit transfer system, had recorded on annual average increase in transactions of 160 % in terms of volume and nearly 200 % in terms of value between 2003 and 2004. the credit card is also becoming a popular means of payment card, with the total value and volume of increasing annually by 15 and 20 percent respectively. the growing acceptance of internet banking as a convenient delivery channel for accessing banking services has translated into a significant growth of internet banking subscribers, which today comprise two thirds of the total internet subscribers. the latest mode of electronic payments channel is the mobile banking services that provide convenience to consumers to access a range of payment services such as funds transfers, bill payments and credit card services through mobile phones. in addition, the establishment of an internet - based multi - bank payment system in malaysia, the financial process exchange in october 2004, would facilitate online payments for a variety of payments by providing convenience and an efficient channel for businesses and consumers to undertake their payment transactions through the internet. while these positive developments will support the attainment of the objective of migration to epayments, the commercial issues between the consumers and the service providers have often times inhibited growth in the volume of the e - payments. the business and pricing models have at times inadvertently promoted a less efficient system, such as in the case of the low price that customers pay for using cheques compared to the inter - bank giro payments, and the popularity of the credit card against debit card, which is a more efficient system that carries less risk. in addition, service providers have also had difficulties in agreeing on a common business platform, due to their own competitive positioning strategies. such differences have contributed to containing the increased acceptance of epayments, which is further reinforced by the consumers'need to see a wide spread acceptance by merchants before deciding to use the e - payment mode, while the merchant needs to see a critical mass of consumers before putting in place the required infrastructure. in this regard, a comprehensive review of the industry - wide related issues involving payment instruments and systems needs to be undertaken to make malaysia more competitive, with a view to promoting the more efficient payment systems and addressing the commercial hurdles. in order to further improve the growth and promote the e - payments, the