##s to commodities, a wide array of malaysia ’ s exports have gained international 4 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches recognition. a recent case in point is the palm oil industry, which also marks its 100th year of industrialisation this year. since the introduction of the roundtable sustainable palm oil ( rspo ) standards, our major palm oil players have redesigned their plantation strategies to comply with the strict rspo standards. we have also gone a step further by introducing the malaysian sustainable palm oil ( mspo ) certification to elevate the standards of smallholders. malaysia ’ s economic and business policies are agile and pragmatic. our world is increasingly fast - paced, with ever changing challenges. to remain competitive and relevant, policies must be agile and efficient. malaysia ’ s policies have been flexible and pragmatic. time and again, we have demonstrated the courage to take bold and unconventional measures to protect the economy and the interests of genuine investors. time and again, our policies have become even more liberalised than before, as we move forward to make the market more competitive, more transparent and more dynamic. seven months ago, we took swift and pragmatic actions to implement foreign exchange market development measures to stabilise the foreign exchange market. i am pleased to report that these measures are successful, where the 1 - month implied volatility has halved. onshore foreign exchange have recovered to a stable daily average volume of usd10 billion, an increase of 1. 25 times before the measures. daily foreign exchange turnover remains 5 times higher than equity trades. another policy that merits attention is the global phenomenon of rising inequality. markets are not always the best arbitrator for the distribution of jobs, wealth and income. in the era of rapid globalisation, advancement in technology and consequently, the creation of a new economy, there are many winners and losers. as responsible policymakers, we need to reconcile the benefactors of the new economy with those who have been excluded or dislocated during this era of transformation. cognisant of the urgent need to improve our social safety net, the minimum wage was implemented in 2013. many have benefitted from this, including migrant workers. the b40 group was also given cash assistance to cope with the rising cost of living. in the near future, the protection and wellbeing of workers will be enhanced through the introduction of unemployment insurance. i urge businesses to take a broader view of these policies and not purely from a cost perspective.

understand in detail how financial markets operate. effective and efficient financial markets do not happen automatically. the precise structure of each financial market, its trading rules, the mix of market participants and the constraints they face, how and how fast information is transmitted, all part of the microstructure of that market, do make an important difference. i think that fact has now become more widely recognized by economists. but it was not the case just a couple of 1 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches decades ago, when most macroeconomists almost routinely assumed in their models that financial markets would function perfectly in the background. i believe that has changed - witness, for instance, the growth of macrofinance in recent years - and that change has certainly been an improvement. a few words about the program and interagency work now, let me say a few words about the first financial market this conference will focus on, the market for u. s. treasury securities. the u. s. treasury market clearly remains the largest and deepest government securities market in the world. but it has changed a lot. to quote a recent speech by our former fed colleague nellie liang, who is now the under secretary for domestic finance at the treasury, " the market has changed significantly over time, with changes in technology, participants, and regulations, and treasury debt outstanding has grown substantially. " 1 some episodes of stress in the treasury market, including a flash event in 2014 and, more recently, the treasury repo market disruptions of september 2019 and the socalled dash - for - cash episode in 2020, have focused the attention of researchers and u. s. government agencies on the plumbing of the market and on the composition and behavior of its participants. for example, an interagency working group, composed of staff from the u. s treasury, the sec, the cftc, the new york fed, and the board of governors - several members of the group are here - has been studying a broad range of ideas to enhance the resilience of the market. the u. s. treasury has also spearheaded initiatives to enhance data transparency. and the sec has sought comments on several proposals that could materially alter the structure of the market. the federal reserve does not regulate markets, but we obviously have a special interest in the treasury market, in part because some of our policy tools operate through that market and because of how important treasury market functioning is to financial stability. and the recent discussions on the