irma rosenberg : why is swedish inflation so low? speech by ms irma rosenberg, deputy governor of the sveriges riksbank, at the shareholders ’ meeting of sbab - sveriges bostadsfinansieringsaktiebolag, stockholm, 13 april 2005. * * * introduction thank you for your invitation to come here today. inflation today is low and has fallen short of our inflation target since the middle of 2003. there are several explanations for this. one obvious reason is that our own interest rate cuts affect an important component in the consumer price index ( cpi ), namely homeowners ’ interest costs, which decrease as a result. another is the developments in electricity prices, although we had largely foreseen the effects of these. the principal factors, however, seem to have been the recent years ’ high productivity growth in the swedish economy and the drop in import prices. current inflation is not the decisive factor behind the interest rate decisions that we make today. that is because it takes 1 - 2 years before rate adjustments have their full impact on inflation. consequently, our interest rate decisions are based on an assessment of inflation prospects in the coming years. the current inflation rate is the starting point for this assessment, however, and it is therefore important to understand the underlying reasons for why inflation is so low today. another reason is that it may be warranted in some situations to allow inflation to deviate from target for a period that extends beyond the normal forecast horizon, which is something i will be coming back to. a third reason is that it is important for the bank ’ s future forecasting work to understand why our forecasts sometimes are inaccurate. the low inflation rate has helped fuel the monetary policy debate in the past year. on the one hand, we have been criticised for not sticking to our normal policy rule and that monetary policy, given this rule, is not expansionary enough. on the other hand, it has been claimed that the expansion in household credit has been too fast and that the risk of a house price bubble should prompt us to raise the repo rate. one variation on the latter theme has been more general criticism that the riksbank has its hands tied as a result of its own inflation target and that its policy is rigid. the essence of this seems to be that we have adopted an overly slavish approach in trying to meet the inflation target. so the question of how best to conduct monetary policy is not easy. as

muhammad bin ibrahim : pilot platform for cross - border investment and settlement of debt securities remarks by mr muhammad bin ibrahim, deputy governor of the central bank of malaysia, at the press conference for the launch of the pilot platform for cross - border investment and settlement of debt securities, jointly with the hong kong monetary authority and euroclear bank, hong kong, 13 march 2012. * * * the world as we know is changing. many aspects of how the global financial landscape will change have been discussed. one key area of focus has been the uneven growth momentum across the world, which is expected to persist for some time, and this development will have an impact on the trends and direction of the flows of trade and capital across the world. in essence, the nature of trade and capital flows will be significantly different from what we have experienced in the past decades ; gross capital flows from across the globe between the east and the west, the north and the south, will be larger in size and more robust, going forward. these developments may pose risk in particular, to open economies like malaysia and hong kong. a key safeguard to manage the risks that may arise from this transformation would be by strengthening our financial systems, to further develop the capital markets and to strengthen the regulatory and supervisory frameworks. in the asian region, accentuating this global transformation are the rapid regional economic and financial integration and the expansion of domestic demand. while these developments are likely to further reinforce the strong intra - regional trade and investment linkages that are already in place, a key aspect of the increased financial integration in asia is the need for more efficient intermediation of funds within the region. this includes the mobilizing and channeling of some part of the sizeable savings in asia to productive investments. the average savings rate in asia is 35 % of gdp and asia as a group has a total of about usd5 trillion in foreign reserves. even if we invest 1 % of this amount, the impact would be significant. with further liberalisation of the financial sector and the capital account, and the increased linkages of the national payment systems in asia, financial flows within the region is envisaged to increase. this trend is reinforced by the increased presence of regional institutions in the individual countries ’ domestic financial systems and asia ’ s favourable economic prospects and the increasingly more developed and sophisticated financial markets. this region has already experienced an increase in intra - asian financial flows. one should expect that given the uneven growth paths across economies in the next few