approach we have taken for asean integration. like most regional blocs, the integration process for asean seeks to promote greater regional connectivity which will in turn expand and reinforce the region ’ s growth potential. for asean, this integration process has, however, followed its own distinct path. while asean has drawn lessons from the european experience of monetary and financial integration, the approach taken by asean is distinctly different in order to be consistent with the circumstances of the region. unlike the european union, in which the formation of a monetary union with a single currency represents a major element in realising its economic integration, the asean region had come to a decision in early 2000s, based on a study by the asean central banks that a common currency would not be pursued. this was because the asean economies did not have the preconditions to achieve such a monetary union and that the effort to achieve such preconditions would involve immense costs to the economies. it was therefore concluded that the region would instead be better served by greater regional financial integration to achieve the very same objectives of a greater shared economic prosperity for the region. additionally, in europe, the integration process is facilitated by a more centralised governance structure led by supra - national institutions while asean has built on institutional arrangements and mechanisms that would facilitate financial integration that leverages on a network of committees for the governance process. asean has also adopted a more flexible path that allows member countries to participate in the financial integration process based on the state of readiness. of particular focus is the harmonisation of regulatory standards and supervisory practices, which is reinforced by capacity building initiatives and technical assistance to bring all member states to a similar level. this inclusive approach ensures that all member states mutually benefit from the integration process. additionally, regional cooperation in the areas of surveillance arrangements, financial safety nets, and crisis management has been intensified to secure financial stability during the integration process. while much remains to be done, significant achievements in regional financial integration have already been met in recent years. notably, the launch of the asean banking integration framework ( abif ) in march 2015 and the progress made in integrating the regional capital markets and the payment and settlement systems are important milestones in this process. partnerships for a successful future while the authorities and policy makers in asean have entered into multilateral partnerships to achieve the common goal of a more promising future, so has the private sector, given the immense opportunities the more integrated region presents. this is also reinforced by the intrinsic predisposition of the dna of the region

available at what time - a herculean task, considering the lack of documentation for much of the data. in the us, research on real - time issues owes much to the efforts of dean croushore and tom stark from the federal reserve bank of philadelphia who developed a comprehensive real - time data set for the us economy. at the same time, athanasios orphanides reconstructed the real - time data and forecasts available to the fomc from the greenbooks which are prepared by the federal reserve staff for each meeting. the pioneering work of our american collegues has shown that measurement problems do indeed matter for the conduct of monetary policy. for example, we have learned from their studies that the problem of measurement error is likely to be particularly severe for the output gap - a concept which figures very prominently in much of the recent literature on monetary policy issues. thus, it is not surprising that researchers outside the us, in particular in europe, have taken up the issue of real - time data. this conference here in eltville offers a good chance to present recent research on this issue. today and tomorrow, we will listen to presentations of papers based on real - time national data for the us, the uk, germany, japan, canada, norway and switzerland as well as realtime oecd forecasts for the g7 countries and the euro area countries. we at the bundesbank started to compile a set of real - time data on the german economy two and a half years ago. and we have used these data for selected research topics. let me give you three examples. first, jorg dopke has used the data set to calculate real - time output gaps ( discussion paper 11 / 2004 ). in accordance with the studies by orphanides and van norden ( 1999, 2002 ), he finds that the real - time gaps differ considerably from their counterparts based on the latest vintage of data. one period when the difference between today ’ s estimates and the real - time perception of the output gap was particularly pronounced is the economic boom following german reunification. at that time, the measurement error for the output gap reached a size of up to four percentage points ( depending on the estimation method used ). in this particular case, the error was due to a temporary underestimation of actual output as well as to a more persistent overestimation of potential output. doepke ’ s results thus provide additional evidence that measurement problems can seriously distor