as i mentioned earlier though, the picture is not uniform across the industry and some parts of the farming sector have experienced very difficult conditions over the past year. but overall, the current picture is better than it has been for some years. graph 9 of course, agriculture remains an industry whose fortunes can change quickly from year to year. and it is one in which very significant structural change has occurred over many decades. given its importance to the overall australian economy, it is also an industry that the reserve bank has paid close attention to over the years, and it continues to do so. looking forward, no doubt the fortunes of the industry will continue to wax and wane. and like many other parts of the australian economy, the farming sector will need to continue the process of structural change. as i have talked about, this process is being driven, in part, by a fundamental realignment of global relative prices due to the re - emergence onto the global stage of the populous countries of asia. this realignment of relative prices is creating new opportunities for australian agriculture. i wish you success in finding those opportunities and in taking advantage of them over the years ahead. thank you. bis central bankers ’ speeches

speech security printing : a central banker's perspective – welcome address to high security printing asia lindsay boulton [ * ] assistant governor ( business services ) hsp asia conference melbourne – 5 december 2017 introduction good morning. welcome to high security printing asia 2017 and, for those who have travelled from overseas, welcome to melbourne, australia. i take this opportunity to also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are gathered, the people of the kulin nation, and, on behalf of everyone here, pay my respects to the kulin elders past, present and emerging. i am honoured to be presenting the welcoming address this morning, especially as this is the first time that australia has been the host country in the sixteen - year history of the conference. my address is also presented with considerable pride as australia can claim a number of significant achievements in security printing. we were the first country to develop and issue polymer banknotes into general circulation, beginning with a single - denomination commemorative note in 1988. all five denominations of australian banknotes have now been printed on polymer for over twenty years, which has kept counterfeiting of our banknotes low and production costs contained. we continued the innovation with the introduction of a world - first top - to - bottom clear window in our new banknote series, which we began releasing last year. the second note in the new series – our ten dollar – was released just over two months ago and a new $ 50 is scheduled for release in just under twelve months from now. australia was also one of the first countries to embed microchips containing biometric information into its passports, which, similar to banknotes, has helped to protect australian passports from counterfeiting. it has also helped the secure movement of travellers through our air and sea ports. i would like to open the conference with some general observations on developments in the security printing industry in recent years as well some thoughts on the industry's outlook. you won't be surprised that most of my comments will focus on the banknote segment of the industry given my central bank background. i will, of course, also focus on the asian region, not just because this is the asian part of the high security printing conference series but because this region represents approximately half of the global high security printing market and is around four times larger than the industry's next largest market region. what happens in this region is a significant representation of the industry's global performance. let me begin with some