more jobs than the nhs and the armed forces put together. i ’ d be the last person to underrate the importance of entry level and seasonal jobs ; but you need highly skilled people too. so it ’ s good news that thousands of people are already on tourism and hospitality related fe and work based courses. your new sector skills council will provide an even sharper focus on defining and meeting your industry ’ s training needs. nowadays, your industry makes a major contribution to our national income, and to our exports. and it ’ s not surprising that your fortunes are heavily influenced by the economic climate at home and abroad. the decade of strong growth which you have enjoyed has been underpinned, at the national level, by an unprecedented period of low and stable inflation, and steadily growing output and employment. unemployment has been falling for over a decade and has now reached a thirty year low. and household spending has been growing strongly year in year out since the mid 1990s. what this means is that for many years your customers have been enjoying a very healthy growth in their spending power, in a labour market where jobs have by and large been plentiful. of course, averages never tell the whole story. and hindsight is a wonderful thing. at the time, it didn ’ t always seem like plain sailing. the stock market crash, the slump in transatlantic traffic after september 11 and, last year, iraq war related fears have represented setbacks, especially for london based businesses. over the past few years, overseas tourism has been affected by the economic slowdown in north america and much of europe and, maybe also, by the strength of the exchange rate. on the other hand, though foot and mouth hit the industry very hard in some parts of the country in 2001, domestic tourism seems to have held up well. and that ’ s probably because the uk economy has weathered the squalls of the past few years rather better than both the us and the euro area. since 2000, we have grown more strongly than the euro area, and more steadily than the us ; indeed we are alone among major industrial countries in not having experienced a single quarter of falling output for more than a decade. as a result the uk emerged from the slowdown in the world economy with less slack than other economies. that is the key reason why we were the first to start raising interest rates last november, when world activity started to pick up and demand at home accelerated. since then, a number of other countries,

the new regulatory standard for bank capital adequacy and liquidity – commonly termed as basel iii – as examples. g20 leaders, in late 2011, agreed to further strengthen the fsb ’ s role in order to enable it to keep pace with its growing role in promoting the development and implementation of regulation. accordingly, in june 2012, g20 leaders endorsed the fsb ’ s recommendations on strengthening its capacity, resources and governance. i strongly support the further development of the fsb because i am convinced that it will further improve the elaboration of international rules and regulations as well as international cooperation in regulation and supervision and help to achieve an international level playing field. bis central bankers ’ speeches rigorous monitoring of national implementation while rule - making at the international level is a necessary condition for financial stability, it is by no means sufficient. for the rules to be effective, they have to be translated in national laws and regulations in a timely and consistent manner. therefore, we need to strictly monitor implementation, disclose the respective findings, and let peer pressure work its magic. the fsb and international standard - setting bodies have jointly developed a coordination framework for implementation monitoring to ensure consistent implementation of the reform agenda. as another important part of implementation monitoring, the international monetary fund together with the world bank is regularly assessing the adherence of its member countries to international standards. thereby, the fund is promoting international monetary cooperation and exchange rate stability. in response to weaknesses detected during the financial crisis, the fund initiated various reforms with the aim of strengthening its internal governance as well as its analytical capabilities. i highly welcome those reforms which will further improve the fund ’ s work. to sum up, i regard strengthening existing bodies in the field of global financial regulation and the international monetary system as the right way forward for two main reasons. firstly, it allows building upon the substantial expertise gathered in existing institutions. secondly, jurisdictions are obviously reluctant to further cede national sovereignty to a supra - national level. the enduring debate about the creation of a fiscal union in europe is providing just one vivid example in this regard. accordingly, the creation of a global regulatory authority does not seem to be practical at this point in time. moreover, i regard the current practice of setting rules for the global financial markets as appropriate. in a first step, set the rules at the international level. as a second step, rigorously monitor their translation in national laws and regulations to ensure consistency and a global level playing field. as i have pointed out