will be a powerful tool to enhance financial stability in the partner economies. talking about the alliance we have, we are indeed very fortunate to have three strong institutions to be the founding partners of the pilot platform – the rentas in malaysia, the cmu in hong kong, and the euroclear bank. each will bring unique and valuable contribution to the partnership and the potential synergy would be substantial. through rentas, global investors will have convenient access to islamic bonds. in the other direction, euroclear bank ’ s clients will benefit from the large and increasingly wealthy investor base in southeast asia and the islamic world. likewise, the cmu will provide an easy access to rmb bonds and highly rated bonds in other currencies for the global investors and enrich euroclear ’ s investor base with the fast expanding investor clusters in greater china. euroclear bank, with over 300, 000 securities in 2011 and holds clients ’ assets valued at eur 10. 8 trillion, provides a huge reservoir to support cross - border cross - currency collateralised lending. its large investor base will also provide a powerful platform for global investors to access the markets in hong kong and malaysia. i would like to take this opportunity to thank bank negara malaysia and euroclear for sharing our vision and working with us to bring it to fruition. the platform will offer a wide range of services to global and domestic investors. these services include a global securities database containing information of international and domestic securities, provision of a single point of entry to allow investors to buy and hold international and domestic bonds through their accounts of the local system, cross - border issuance and settlement of bonds in foreign currencies on a delivery - versus - payment basis, provision of an effective and efficient channel for cross - border cross - currency collateralised lending and borrowing between financial institutions, and automation and standardisation of the corporate action processing such as interest payments and redemption, distribution of corporate action notices, and exercise of custody instructions. my colleague esmond will explain these arrangements in greater details shortly. finally, i would like to stress that the pilot platform to be launched is meant to be inclusive, not exclusive, and we welcome the participation of more parties. the benefits in promoting bond market development and financial stability can only increase with more bond investment and settlement systems in the region joining as partners. we will continue to work closely with bank negara malaysia and euroclear bank to promote the platform to other central banks and securities settlement systems

supply chain processes can produce efficiencies in terms of time and labour saved. it also enhances the traceability and security of cross - border trade in goods and services, by enabling real - time visibility into all stages of the supply chain from production to delivery. for economies, digital trade transformation offers substantial productivity gains through, for example, rapid growth of e - commerce. it also offers better prospects of helping to distribute the gains generated from trade more widely and equitably among the various stakeholders. indeed, digitally delivered services already account for a little over half of total services trade1. they are increasingly facilitating trade flow across borders, in support of raising 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches the market share of developing economies, which has increased from about 20 percent to 30 percent of global service trade between 2005 and 2023. meanwhile, digital technologies can be leveraged to enhance cross - border trade settlement and financing, where there is plenty of scope for coordinated solutions to existing pain points. for example, project mbridge has been exploring the use of wholesale central bank digital currencies of hong kong and a number of other participating central banks as a way to speed up cross - border payments at reduced cost, faster settlement, and with better transparency. equally exciting is the use of innovative technologies in trade finance – from blockchain, ai to digital signatures – and greater cooperation around cross - border interoperability that will help close the widening global trade finance gap, estimated by the asian development bank last year to have reached a record us $ 2. 5 trillion. another area of opportunity and cooperation is around green technologies. the consequences of climate change, in the form of higher frequency of extreme weather events, have only become more visible these last few years, and asia is particularly exposed. we need open and predictable trade to enable scale economies and direct low - carbon technologies and services to where they are most needed. in this respect, major regional trade networks can serve as key platforms that facilitate sustainable trade and investment, support climate - resilient economic developments, and enhance the ecosystem of green finance. let me close by noting that the global trading system as we know has brought mutual benefits and shared prosperity to the world economy. granted, there's always scope to make the system work better and fairer. let's focus not just on the challenges, but more on the solutions and the opportunities. there are excellent research papers to be presented at the conference, covering many of the topics