. beyond that, the widespread introduction of floating exchange rates at least in principle provides a shock absorber that makes policy coordination less important than in a fixed - rate world. provided that currency swings are modest and do not introduce their own instabilities, we should get specific about the exact gains from coordination in the modern world. getting specific involves you researchers. these are some of the questions that might come up in a conference such as this, today and in the future. there might well be more questions, but this is already a very rich agenda. but you researchers should not limit yourselves to the questions that we policymakers might ask. we will be confronting policy questions and asking for your help. you should also be confronting questions and dealing with them. in the end, we should hope that a common and open research forum like this one will become a significant development in the evolution of monetary policy, on all continents. here's hoping for a successful enterprise, and here's a challenge for you to make it a successful enterprise.

70 % co - funding support from the financial sector development fund gaining international mindshare to create greater international mindshare, ibf launched the financeconnectsingapore website to profile singapore ’ s financial sector, to provide more information on the career opportunities here and to promote singapore as a choice location to live, work and play. to date, the website has registered over 100, 000 visits. ibf recently partnered with contact singapore to provide a job portal for financial institutions to post job openings targeted at financial professionals from overseas. bringing value to ibf members i have outlined some of the initiatives undertaken by ibf over the past year. going forward, ibf will continue to take a proactive role in promoting best practices and thought leadership in talent management strategies. on thought leadership, i am delighted to warmly welcome our keynote presentation speaker professor ronald collard for this year ’ s annual conference. professor collard will speak on the topic of “ talent strategies for sustained profitable growth ”. i believe you will learn much from professor collard ’ s extensive experience and expertise in the area of talent strategies. i also wish to thank the panelists, david, richard, robert and mark for their participation, and look forward to a lively discussion later. as ibf management is quite confident that professor collard and our panel of speakers will whet your appetite for more learning, i am pleased to announce that we will be holding the beacon series for hr professionals in october and the distinguished speaker series for business leaders in november. the year ahead will be exciting. many of you have contributed to ibf in various ways. i wish to thank my fellow council members, the fics steering committee, the fics working group members, and ficps for your contribution to promoting the fics framework. let me extend my appreciation to our industry associations and partners, including the embassy of switzerland in singapore, swiss house singapore and swiss business hub asean for partnering ibf in its organization of the workshop on “ talent development in wealth management ” in november last year ; and pricewaterhousecoopers without whom we would not have had the pleasure of listening to professor collard today. i also wish to thank the singapore workforce development agency and the monetary authority of singapore, for their close collaboration with ibf. i look forward to more of such collaboration between ibf and our industry associations and partners in the year ahead. i wish you a fruitful session ahead.