legitimated son of the sun king ), its new owner. although this symposium is being held in paris in the most prestigious part of the banque de france, it is, nonetheless, a joint symposium of the banque de france and the bank of japan. indeed, without the remarkable efforts of the representative office of the bank of japan in paris, which has played a leading role in its organisation, this symposium would never have seen the day. this office has also acted as the go - between with the head office of the bank of japan in tokyo, for which i thank it sincerely. while the banque de france has been seconding a representative to the french embassy in tokyo since 1976, the representative office of the bank of japan was set up in paris over 50 years ago. this office is an extremely strong and precious link between our two institutions, which enjoy exceptionally good long - standing relations. the banque de france is very attached to the presence of this office in paris and strives to provide it with assistance and information. this office is also, i believe, for the bank of japan, a prime vantage point for observing the french economy and the paris financial centre, naturally, as well as a particular vantage point for the euro area, which is highly complementary with that provided by its office in frankfurt. for these reasons the bank of japan has retained this representation in paris, and we are extremely pleased that it has. in addition to this very strong institutional foundation of the relationship between the banque de france and the bank of japan, you, governor fukui, bring an important personal dimension in the form of your personal attachment to our country. it should be pointed out that, in the early 1970s, you yourself worked in the bank of japan ’ s office in paris. during this “ french period ” of your career, you acquired an extraordinary knowledge of our country, its language and culture. since then, you have always shown deep and unswerving friendship towards france. you have many french friends, some of whom are with us today. the french government recognised your exceptional contribution to franco - japanese friendship by awarding you the “ commander of the legion of honour ” – the highest of our national honours. let me say how happy and moved i was to be present, in tokyo on 25 november 2005, at the ceremony where you received this decoration from france ’ s ambassador in japan. i would add that i myself am fascinated by japan and its culture. for over 25 years i

##seeable future, require regulatory coordination and supervisory cooperation before a large firm's failure becomes a real possibility. in one sense, this observation reinforces the importance of the international agenda for strengthening capital and liquidity standards. it also counsels continued attention to efforts to ensure that globally active institutions are subject to effective consolidated supervision, and that information - sharing arrangements among home and host country supervisors are well designed and implemented. to this end, the key supervisors and central banks for each of the largest global banks will begin to meet regularly to discuss crisis planning, with particular attention to contingency liquidity planning. the crisis demonstrated that issues around cross - border liquidity support are difficult. liquidity pressures may arise in unexpected places ; time for coordination will be short ; and failures in one jurisdiction likely will spread quickly to other jurisdictions. the basel committee and the committee of european banking supervisors are working on definitions of liquid assets, common stress testing metrics and structural balance sheet measures. we are actively discussing the appropriate division of responsibility between home and host authorities to provide liquidity support and the related issue of how to approach cross - border branch operations. some have called into question the traditional assumption that home country authorities will be willing and able to support all of the worldwide operations of a banking group headquartered in its jurisdiction. what approach to substitute remains unclear, however, beyond the obvious need for broad international consistency and careful calibration with other prudential requirements. one of the key issues identified by the basel committee's cross - border bank resolution group is the complexity and interconnectedness of the largest organizations. often the complexity is motivated by tax or regulatory factors, rather than a clear business purpose. given the way these firms are structured and their linkages to key systems and other institutions, resolution of such an organization will carry significant risk of spillovers to other key markets, payments systems, or systemically important institutions. the cross - border bank resolution group consequently recommended developing initiatives that would result in simpler, less connected structures. living wills and improved management information systems this point leads us to one much - discussed idea, that of firm - specific resolution plans – sometimes referred to more colorfully, though not wholly accurately, as living wills. in one variant of the idea, each internationally active bank would be required to develop, and potentially to execute, its own resolution plan – literally to plan for its own demise. such a requirement could doubtless be helpful to some degree, but it has notable limitations. most obviously,