although the uae is well developed when it comes to financial inclusion, there are still unbanked sectors of the society and under banked geographical areas within the uae. therefore, we need to provide the infrastructure necessary for banks and other financial institutions to provide their services including credit, to all sectors of the society and in all bis central bankers ’ speeches geographical regions within the uae. this will be achieved, sometimes, through using electronic systems. 2 ) sme financing : we believe that sme financing will become more difficult when new global regulations are implemented, therefore, we have to find ways and means to improve sme financing outside the banking system. at the moment, the uae is looking at experiences of other jurisdictions and recently we have at a gcc banking conference which was held at the beginning of this month, discussed the experience of korea. we are also looking at the experiences of italy and malaysia. we believe that sme financing is very important for job creation. our region in particular will need to create more jobs in the future, due to relatively young population. 3 ) domestic debt market : the development of a domestic debt market is, in my view, of a national priority. companies, particularly large private companies and gres, need an alternative to bank lending. it is a more reliable source of funding and it is less costly for large corporations. banks also would need instruments of the domestic debt market to fulfill the requirements of basel 3 regarding liquidity ratios. as local debt markets are at an infancy stage in many countries in the region, this would make it difficult for banks to hold highquality liquid debt instruments as “ preemptive ” liquidity buffers against early signs of stress as required by basel 3. therefore, it is necessary for the uae now to expedite the issuance of the public debt law and to set up the needed market infrastructure, as a first step on the way to a vibrant domestic debt market. excellencies ladies & gentlemen with this i come to the end of my speech, but before i close, i would like to thank the basel committee on banking supervision ( bcbs ), the fsi of bis and the amf, for holding this important high level meeting here in abu dhabi, uae. i wish you all a successful meeting. thank you for your attention … bis central bankers ’ speeches

other countries. this means that at least 80 % of the 80 % of non - euro area imports of the gcc countries are denominated in us dollars. on the other hand, if we look at uae imports'picture, the situation is more so not in favour of imports from the euro area, due to the fact that uae imports from the euro area went down from 24 % of all uae imports in 2001 to only 15. 28 % in 2005. interestingly the picture to the europeans is misleading if we look at it from absolute figures of imports. these have grown from us dollars 7. 21 billion in 2001 to us dollars 15. 12 billion in 2005, also the uae gives the euro area about us dollars 9 billion of trade surplus. the next point i want to tackle is the issue of flow of foreign investment funds into the euro area, also from a gcc countries'perspective. there are two questions here ; • can the euro area absorb large amounts of investment funds from the gcc countries in a short period of time? • can the euro area provide a competitive environment to attract investment funds from the gcc countries, to make it worthwhile to convert part of their oil revenue maintained in dollar at the moment? the answer to the first question is obviously, " no ", probably because euro area countries do not try to attract large foreign investments, in general, one reason maybe because they do not want to see a lot of liquidity go into their local markets and cause inflationary pressures and the other maybe they do not want to create increased demand for foreign labor force. however, there seems to be no uniform stand on this issue within the euro area countries. the answer to the second question is also " no ", but in this case may be due to the euro area have not yet harmonized its labor, tax and financial services laws, which also explain the no common stand regarding the issue of whether the euro area is really interested in attracting large investment funds. the euro area countries have choice at the moment in terms of interpretation of their dominant local laws, but once laws get harmonized or unified their choice will be reduced or eliminated all together, and the euro will witness an upward demand through foreign investment flows. the last point i will consider is tourism and the influence tourism has on demand for a certain currency. europe is, and has been the most popular tourist destination for people of the uae and other gcc countries. hundreds of thousands from gcc countries visit one