globalized era so that the region could still achieving financial stability. this is the challenge for us and also for asean bankers association. the asean bankers association has played an important role in facilitating the exchange of information and expertise on banking among the staff of the banks in southeast asia. there is room for greater cooperation among banks, such as exchange, attachment, and apprenticeship among the staff of the banks in the region, as well as cooperation with other regional groupings and international financial institutions. asean bankers association should explore ways to create greater synergies through partnership and cooperation. i believe that the asean bankers association will deliberate at length a strategic review of cooperation in finance, investment, and trade ; education ; and inter regional relation on this meeting. this is an opportunity for the council to re - examine the relevance of asean bankers association roles, and explore ways in which it can better serve its members. asean bankers association has to reposition itself to meet the challenges of the new globalized economy. finally, may i now take a great pleasure in declaring the meeting open and wishing all of you success in your deliberations. thank you.

burhanuddin abdullah : globalization, financial stability and regional cooperation keynote address by mr burhanuddin abdullah, governor of bank indonesia, at the 33rd asean banking council meeting, bali, 10 october 2003. * * * mr. secretary general, mr. chairman, distinguished officers and members of the asean banking council, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and assalamu ’ alaikum wr. wb it is indeed a great pleasure for me to welcome all of you to this beautiful island of bali and to open this meeting today. it is also a most gratifying experience to speak before a large gathering of distinguished representatives of bankers association from the 10 asean nations. your presence here is an opportunity to further enhance cooperation among bankers to promote regional growth in a new global environment. as we all may aware, globalization is a reality and no country in the world is immune to its impact. it has opened up tremendous opportunities, but it has also posed a wide range of challenges and risks. we must therefore strive to maximize the benefits of globalization while endeavouring to minimize the costs. our experiences in the past crisis has shown that even the most dynamic economies are vulnerable. in spite of the judicious macroeconomic policies that we adopted and the structural adjustments that we carried out, the development gains that we earned over decades could crumble in the span of a few weeks. the severe crisis proved that our banking system had some structural weaknesses. those weaknesses had led most of the asean countries banking system into deep trouble, reflecting in the mounting amount of non performing loan, serious liquidity problems, huge amount of losses and eventually caused many banks to became insolvent. in the face of these realities, the asean banking industry has rightly responded to restore the solvency and the stability of the banking system, through banking restructuring program, and improvement of banking supervisory and regulatory capability. ladies and gentlemen, this crisis may be abating, but greater challenges still lie ahead. the challenges that we are going to faced, first is the heightened competition among banks that requires bankers to make the basic strategic decision. as financial modernization going forward, bankers will be forced to decide what kind of institution they want to be. bankers need to figure out where they want to be in terms of a whole spectrum of activities whether they want to be a local bank, regional, or global bank. the second is a challenge of effective risk mitigation and risk intermediation. we have to ask how do we keep