the task of investment managers and risk managers will be very challenging. they need to re - evaluate their strategies for risk management and strengthen their tools and capacities for modeling risk. this workshop has been designed to contribute to building capacity to meet these challenges. the workshop will also provide regional and international experts with an opportunity to exchange views, ideas and their own experiences of managing risk. a major focus of the workshop is the use of modeling techniques to guide risk management. statistical models have become integral to risk management in financial institutions and among financial investors. such models have made a crucial contribution to the development of risk management ; providing it with a more rigorous, scientific foundation. but, for the reasons that i have already mentioned, some of these models are now attracting critical scrutiny from policy makers, regulators, investment managers and academics. notable among the statistical models is the value - at - risk model, which has become the principal tool for the management of market risk, and to some extent, the management of credit risk in many financial institutions. if this model is such a powerful tool, as its proponents claim, why did financial institutions make losses which were many times greater than the amount which value at risk models estimated was possible? risk models and risk management in general are based on the assumption of normal market conditions, where willing buyers and sellers exist, with adequate market liquidity to enable assets to be priced in the market. what happens when the market collapses? it is clear that risk management models perform poorly in such circumstances. nevertheless, statistical models will continue to play an important role in risk management, despite their shortcomings, but practitioners must be wary of placing too much faith in the results of models alone. sound judgement, based on a comprehensive knowledge of markets and a thorough understanding of economic and financial theory is an essential complement to the use of statistical models. mefmi has assembled an impressive line - up of international and regional resource persons to conduct this workshop. they bring a huge amount of experience and expertise in the various issues will be covered here in the next two weeks. i am confident that the workshop will help all of you who are participating to master the statistical modeling techniques which are essential for risk management and to improve your understanding of the concepts and theories of risk management. with these few words, i declare the workshop open. i wish you fruitful deliberations.

tourist arrivals from china at 4, 087 was just 0. 8 percent of total arrivals. in 2010, the figure rose to 18, 147 or 2. 9 percent and further increased to 24, 389 or 3. 6 percent in 2011. the latest figure for january to march 2012 is 5. 2 percent. with the increasing trend in arrivals from china, we know that such an alliance will be beneficial to china unionpay and bsp. bis central bankers ’ speeches card policy ladies and gentlemen, the reserve bank issued a press release on thursday last week upholding the “ no surcharge rule ” for credit and debit card payments in fiji. this extends to all merchants and all cards used in fiji and will be effective from 1 november 2012, allowing a necessary transition period for banks to roll out awareness and merchants to review their existing practices and procedures. the “ no surcharge rule ” is already in place as stipulated by major credit card providers in agreements with banks and contained in agreements between banks and merchants. i hope that this announcement will make shopping in fiji more transparent, convenient and attractive for our visitors from china. so whether you pay by cash or credit card, the price is the same. we look forward to compliance by the commercial banks and merchants in the implementation of this policy. the fijian economy let me take this opportunity to say a few words about the fijian economy. based on economic activity for the first six months of 2012, overall performance has been on track and the projected growth of 2. 7 percent for the year remains intact. however, we still need to be mindful of developments in the global economy and any likely impact on our trading partners. inflation in fiji was 4. 0 percent in july. this is lower than the inflation rates in the previous months. the decline is due to lower commodity prices and current benign domestic driven inflationary pressures. as a result, we still expect the year end inflation to be around 3. 5 percent. the level of foreign reserves is currently just under $ 1. 6 billion or adequate to cover 5 months of retained imports of goods and non factor services. we are currently reviewing economic data and the next official update on the economic variables will be during the 2013 national budget announcement. conclusion in conclusion, i take this opportunity to thank the chinese government for its continuing goodwill and willingness to engage in closer economic ties with fiji. i also extend my best wishes towards this partnership between china unionpay and bank south pacific. this