country. domestically, it is imperative that the new financial institutions law be enacted to give us the necessary power to implement, among other things, the all - important consolidated supervision and prompt corrective action over financial institutions. finally, i would like to thank you all for participating in this workshop, especially those of you who have contributed to the self - assessment exercise that has already been in progress. your continued cooperation and support will certainly be much needed in the months and years ahead. i wish you all an interesting and useful workshop. thank you very much.

at all times. for emerging markets, this means a strong banking sector. in the current crisis, it is the strength of the banking sector that has enabled the asian economies to cope more successfully with the impact of the global crisis. these strengths are underpinned by the sector ’ s strong capital base, its limited exposure to subprime - related and other toxic assets, and its low reliance on external funding. such strength and qualities are no accident. they are the results of deliberate policies to reform the financial system, strengthen supervision of financial institutions, and revamp financial regulation, risk management, and governance after the asian financial crisis. the point i want to stress here is that these are the qualities that helped us through the current global financial crisis and they are the qualities that we need to keep. the fourth lesson is the benefits to long - term growth and stability that come from disciplined policy management and the pursuance of policy that enhances flexibility in the economic system. the 1997 – 1998 crisis has been an important lesson for asia on this point. disciplined policy reduces the risk of an internally - induced crisis due to policy error and provides the authorities with greater room and flexibility to deal with unexpected events or shocks. in the current crisis, the ability of many asian economies to respond aggressively to the impact of the crisis without undermining policy credibility is a case in point. from my own experience, policy discipline relates closely to decisions that are made with a long - term perspective. the lack of discipline more than often reflects policy that focuses overwhelmingly on short - term outcome. in economics, emphasis on short - term outcome tends to reduce volatility initially but a cost of a much larger volatility and welfare loss at a later date as the needed adjustment is postponed. a long - term perspective, on the other hand, allows the adjustment to be spread out with lesser volatility and effects on economic welfare. next, enhancing flexibility in the economy through policy that raises the role of the price mechanism in the allocation of resources is another crucial policy choice that can make important differences to the economies of emerging markets. again, we in asia learned this lesson well in the 1990 ’ s. since then, reform of the policy regime to increase flexibility, especially the exchange rate, has contributed importantly to greater resiliency and abilities of the economies in asia to adjust to changes in the external environment. so, the fact that the asian economies have done better this time is not only because of the policy response during