it is important to increase the support for economic sectors with strong growth potential, like agriculture and tourism ; b ) the increase of our economy ’ s competitiveness and its further formalization. in this regard, the debate should focus on finding the incentives to increase the domestic production and support domestic savings. over the time these would improve our current account balance, and improve the availability of our foreign currency assets ; c ) the expansion of the economic agents ’ funding sources. in this regard the authorities should implement policies that support the development of the non - banking financial sector and that sustain the establishment of capital and debt market for private entities. the accomplishment of these targets shall firstly require the strengthening of the financial reporting standards ; the completion and improvement of the legal framework for the developments of business relationships and the improvements in the protection of creditors and consumer rights, regarding the financial institutions and products. in more practical terms, these measures are expected to improve the availability of the funding sources for the economic growth, and gradually decrease its dependence from the banking sector ; d ) the improvement and the completion of the legal and operational framework to strengthen the crisis management capacities of the public authorities. in this regard, the authorities should identify the necessary measures for the prevention, the treatment and the elimination of financial crisis consequences. bank of albania believes it is important that each public authority carry out an assessment of its legal, financial, human and technological capabilities, to perform its role in the crisisprone situations. needless to say, throughout this process, the coordination among the public authorities should be at the highest level. the banking industry itself is required to carry out a process of re - assessment of its development objectives and models for the future, so as to ensure consistent and stable profits. in this regard, the managing structures of the banks are expected to undertake a process with the purpose of : a ) re - assessing the development priorities ; b ) establishing a better balance regarding income sources and focus on cost control ; c ) enabling a higher specialization of their business and identify competitive priorities ; d ) achieving a better balance regarding the composition of their assets and liabilities according to the currency, maturity structure, etc. ; e ) implementing more active policies to approach and maintain the public ( customers ) close to the institution ; f ) strengthening the internal audit structure and risks management and research capacities. bank of albania is now working with the goal that, within the needed time frame and after properly consulting with the financial industry, to support this process through the introduction of

rating agencies have better local knowledge and insights. the rating methodologies are similar, technical model - driven and back tested. in addition, most domestic rating agencies have international partners for technical assistance, standard and quality assurance. before i conclude, there are some ideas that could contribute to the further integration of our fixed income markets. firstly, a crucial driver for greater financial integration is the availability of efficient and effective financial intermediaries. we should look to enhance and better connect the network of intermediaries in the region as it would support the development of a strong and integrated market. with the agreement of the region ’ s regulatory authorities, this can be achieved through the formation of a regional dealers ’ network for the primary and secondary market. such regional dealers will help to distribute securities around the region and more importantly create the market to facilitate cross - border transactions. in doing so, it creates liquidity in the fixed income market, attracting greater foreign investors ’ participation and lowers the cost of funding. asean corporates are thus able to tap into new markets and investors and widen their sources of financing. this contributes to greater depth and breadth of the regional fixed income market. secondly, as intra - regional trade within asean is becoming more significant with further potential in intra - regional investments, another untapped area is the cross currency foreign exchange market, that could support regional settlement for trade and investment. asean is well positioned to advocate the greater use of regional currencies that will further enhance and deepen regional financial integration via use of regional currencies for trade settlement. the cost of hedging the exchange rate risk will be lower thus it promotes efficiency in trade bis central bankers ’ speeches and enhances export competitiveness of our businesses. we should therefore, work together and double our effort to promote and enhance the use of regional currencies for trade and investment settlement. sovereign funds managers could also give a timely boost to this effort by investing a fraction of their funds into domestic currencies of regional bond markets. finally, this summit itself is a platform to promote regional integration, as it can be an important avenue to discuss and showcase developments of the asean fixed income market and bring together policy makers and industry participants. given the benefits and outcome that can be derived from this summit, our asean financial market community would be better served if this summit is organized on an annual basis and hosted by rotation among the asean countries. this would provide an excellent opportunity to each asean member country to showcase their domestic fixed income market to