turnover in the china interbank bond market ( cibm ) are traded through northbound bond connect, and over 70 % of foreign holdings in onshore equities are held through the stock connect. we have been working closely with mainland authorities to support the opening - up of the mainland financial market. just last month, the hkma and the people's bank of china ( pboc ) announced six new measures to deepen financial cooperation between hong kong and the mainland. these measures include promoting the use of onshore bonds as eligible collateral in offshore markets, starting with the hkma's rmb liquidity facility, and further opening up the onshore repo market. they will enable bond connect investors to better manage liquidity using their existing bond holdings. the third measure enhances the crossboundary wealth management connect scheme in the greater bay area, which will open up new avenues for growth for our asset and wealth management sector. other than the connect schemes, the other focus of our mainland - related work is to encourage the use of the rmb in cross - border trade settlement and investment. last year, the rmb surpassed the usd for the first time to become the number one currency in china's cross - border payments. the share of rmb settlements in the total value of goods trade jumped to 25 % at the end of 2023, up from 15 % just two years ago. to support the wider international use of the rmb, we are doing further work to enhance liquidity, promote the launch of new products and risk management tools, and modernise our financial infrastructure. 2 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches second is on sustainable finance. as i mentioned earlier, climate change is affecting all of us, and there is a role for everyone to play in mitigating its impact. at the hkma, we have been actively contributing to the climate agenda, leveraging our core functions as a bank supervisor, responsible investor and market facilitator. as a bank supervisor, we have taken concrete steps to strengthen banks'climate resilience. in 2022, we developed a two - year plan to embed climate risk considerations into our supervisory processes, and looked to harnessing the power of technology to help banks assess the impact of physical risks. we are the first in asia to mandate climate - related disclosure across the financial sector by 2025, and the first market working to operationalise the common ground taxonomy jointly developed by china and the eu. as

, 11 % uk, 10. 5 % japan, 10 % canada, 8 % germany and 6. 5 % switzerland - with the us itself at 8 %. how many of you would have got this right ex ante? i hesitate to try to draw any profound conclusions from this, other than that, with us inflation averaging about 3 %, there was clearly a reasonable real return to be had everywhere. you did not have to be greedy to survive. the argument of the monetarist school that - to put it in a slightly condensed form - monetary factors do not have a lasting effect on real developments, was especially fashionable during the 1970s when governments were criticised for conceding to inflation in the mistaken belief that they could thereby sustain or stimulate activity. subsequent experience has proved, if anything, that the optimal monetary stance is, quite simply, a continuing steady one, and that variance on either side - whether too tight or too loose and after allowing for any real shocks - may incur lasting economic losses. thus, today, the received wisdom is that central banks should follow clearly articulated policies aimed at a stable monetary environment. this in turn begs the question of how to define a stable monetary environment. in hong kong, a highly open economy with no capital controls, we focus on stability of the exchange rate, but this regime itself requires a flexible economic structure and a sound banking sector. i believe that hong kong possesses those attributes, as demonstrated not least by the adjustment of the past two years, and that the peg remains the appropriate regime for us, but i would be the first to admit that it is may not suit others. from the point of view of investors, it is the stability and credibility of macroeconomic policy as a whole which probably determines, or ought to determine, investment strategy. as experience tells us, it can be a costly mistake to pay attention only to particular parts of the policy regime, such as the exchange rate, without scrutinising the wider context in order to be satisfied that the overall design is credible. and so it is my pleasure to help to launch this conference today, and to welcome those of you from outside hong kong. we pride ourselves in being a place which offers not only a wide choice of excellent conference facilities but also, more importantly, the critical mass of financial and ancillary services which issuers and investors require - and which many of you here today contribute to. much has been written of late as to whether costs in hong kong are too