is foreign exchange reserves. we have about $ 360 billion, plus forward positions to offset possible forward liabilities. we also see merit in pooling reserves, and have a contingent reserve agreement with brics countries, and a currency swap arrangement with saarc countries. i am glad to say that this saarc facility has been of use to some of you. bis central bankers ’ speeches we are very conscious of the role the indian economy plays in influencing growth in other saarc economies. to avoid any negative externalities, we have kept the objective of securing and preserving macro - stability at the top of our agenda. the ongoing disinflation, aided by our new monetary policy framework, and the resultant outcome of relative exchange rate stability compared with other emerging market peers, have hopefully served as a public good in this region. we have contributed to strengthening the safety nets in the region. we look forward to a strengthening indian economy as recent structural reforms take hold, and hope that some of this growth will spillover to your economies. in turn, we hope to be benefited as your economies pick up. together, we can hopefully be an island of relative stability and co - operation in this turbulent world. thank you. i look forward to fruitful deliberations at the rest of the symposium. bis central bankers ’ speeches

- led growth model to a consumption - led model. combined with the previous bouts of leveraged expansion, china now has a number of sectors that suffer from the twin ailments of overcapacity and high leverage. bad loans in the banking system are likely to grow over current levels – stressed loans are estimated to be around 5. 5 % of the bank loan book today. in addition, there may be serious weaknesses in the shadow banking system, which could feed back to banks. clearly, cleaning up the financial system will be a challenging but necessary task. work at the imf suggests that a 1 - percent permanent negative shock to china gdp caused by one - off 1 - percentage decline in its real gdp growth will knock off 0. 23 percentage points from global growth in the short - run 3. a key question is whether we in saarc region are at significantly more risk than others. the answer probably is no because none of us is primarily commodity exporter to china, but it cannot be an unqualified one. trade could be impacted due to second round effects – we export to those who traditionally export to china and have thus slowed down – and due to similarity in trade patterns with china – we compete with those who now have excess production capacity. on the financial side, exposure to china is large for the asia - pacific banks, especially for banks from hong kong, singapore and australia and much less for banks from our region. however, some of our countries, though not india, have significant borrowing from chinese banks, and these borrowings could become costlier if chinese banks turn inwards. moreover, financial market losses in china can heighten the risk premia that industrial country investors will charge for investing in our region, and the result could be capital outflows of the kind that were seen last august and early this year. chinese growth will depend not just on its policies, but on growth elsewhere in the world. there appears to be a general consensus that global growth has been too slow for too long. the imf downgraded its outlook for global growth in 2016 and 2017 by 0. 2 and 0. 1 percentage points, respectively. it is true that downside risks and uncertainties to the global outlook are large in the backdrop of event risks i have alluded to. however, a more careful look at the data suggests some care in jumping to the conclusion that growth has been slow. global growth has averaged 3. 5 per cent since 1980 and, in