emerging europe – meet three times a year to discuss issues of importance to the economies. and under the fsb, there are six regional consultative groups, including one for asia. i have been asked to chair both of these platforms, and am hoping to use them to better communicate the voices of asian economies, to ensure that asia plays a part in international standard - setting and policymaking that is commensurate with our growing economic and intellectual contributions of the region. approach in hong kong i would now like to move closer to home. as an international financial centre, we come across issues that are similar to those that our peers in the rest of the world face, and we ensure that our rules are of high quality and consistent with international standards. at the same time, we also take care to strike a balance with market development. given the incidents that we have witnessed over the past year, i would argue that robust regulation is more important than ever to the longer term growth of our market. let me elaborate using the hkma's three key development focuses, namely, mainland china, tech and innovation, and sustainable finance. ( i ) mainland china opportunities as we all know, hong kong is the dominant gateway between mainland china and the rest of the world. about two - thirds of direct and financial investment between the mainland and the rest of the world is intermediated through hong kong. and this ratio has remained largely stable throughout the years, despite the rapid opening up of the mainland and growth of its economy and financial market. over the past decades, we have been working closely with mainland authorities to expand our product offerings. for example, our various " connect " initiatives have allowed mainland and international investors to access products in each other's market. starting with the launch of the h - share framework three decades ago, to the connect schemes for stocks and over the years expanding into bonds, etfs, wealth management products and swaps, the different initiatives are the go - to channels for cross - border investment and underpin some important milestones such as the inclusion of the china government bond in major bond market indices. as well, our renminbi products and services offerings have mushroomed. last year, more than rmb330 billion of dim sum bonds were issued in hong kong, more than double the issuance volume the year before. and last year's issuance record was again surpassed in the first eight months of this year. hong kong's offshore rmb's market has

##vency. but a sudden financial retreat by many financial institutions simultaneously cannot occur without generalised financial suffering, and without banks incurring substantial capital losses. asset prices fall rapidly and bank capital declines. the interbank markets dry up. the economy loses an indispensable mechanism for generating income and allocating resources, namely the intermediation of savings. in a second phase beginning in 2011, the lack of credit to the more vulnerable sovereign issuers became the centre point of the crisis. the euro area governments responded with actions that, while individually effective, revealed the political unsustainability of a union in which the countries that pay and the countries that receive are always the same. sovereign debt in the euro area is no longer risk - free : it depends on the sovereign and the quality of its policies. this process, beneficial in and of itself, revolutionised the risk structure on which the functioning of the european financial markets was based for so many years. in addition, without a single union government and economic policy, it led to an abnormal increase in risk premia, which reached systemic proportions. premia were no longer based on the creditworthiness of borrowers, which was admittedly shaky for reasons already mentioned, but rather could only be explained by the manifestation of expectations regarding the end of the euro. risk premia and non - standard measures but what are risk premia? the compensation required on a long - term financial contract must be at least equal to what could be obtained with a short - term contract that is continuously renewed until the end of the term. long - term investors require a return that, at the very least, establishes financial equivalence between the two strategies. but, in general, equivalence is not enough. creditors expect additional compensation for the risks they take on relating to not being paid back promptly. these risks are varied and the markets attach a price – or risk premium – to each one. the pure risk relating to postponing the availability of capital for a period of time is compensated by a term risk premium. the risk that a creditor is forced to liquidate a longterm financial investment before maturity in difficult market circumstances is compensated by a liquidity risk premium. finally, the risk that the borrower does not meet his / her repayment obligations at the end of the contractually - agreed term is compensated by a credit risk premium. bis central bankers ’ speeches in a period of deep financial crisis, the increase in all risk premia is, as