from all of our efforts suggest that we look to be on track in meeting our primary goals. that is, not to introduce large changes in the aggregate amount of capital currently held in the banking system while at the same time to provide tangible incentives for banks to adopt the most advanced and sophisticated approaches to capital adequacy. as we near completion of the new accord, i am reminded that the tremendous progress we have made is a reflection of the steadfast commitment that so many have put forth to see the revision process through to its completion. the success of the new accord will be directly attributable to the enormous support and assistance provided by both bankers and supervisors. yet a chinese proverb reminds us that, " on a journey of one hundred miles, ninety is but halfway. " i suppose the last miles of any marathon are the toughest to finish. the wisdom of that proverb is borne out by the critical nature of the tasks ahead of us to complete, and then to implement, the new capital framework. adopting the new accord will be a challenging but also an exciting undertaking for us all. the potential benefits are many - including improving the management of risk, enhancing transparency and promoting greater financial stability. in short, this new framework will make all of us - bankers, supervisors and others - better at what we do. thank you very much.

auditors to prevent cozy relationships undermining the integrity of the audit. a periodic change of the firm might have led to more serious questioning of the accounts. further, some us firms have announced plans to include, as an expense, the cost of executive stock options. the changes aim to more accurately describe the revenues and costs associated with companies ’ primary business. and standard and poor ’ s has introduced new benchmarks for reporting corporate earnings. these are all positive examples of participants working together to enforce the spirit of the rules under which financial markets operate. what has been done recently in switzerland to improve the transparency of swiss financial markets? some efforts have already started some time ago. most notably, the swiss exchange and the swiss business federation “ economiesuisse ” co - ordinated their efforts to develop two sets of rules which became effective on july 1, 2002 : the “ swiss code of best practice ” and the “ directive concerning information on corporate governance ”. this will hopefully lift the standards for corporate governance and improve the level of transparency for the publicly traded firms in switzerland. we have also seen political initiatives aiming at more transparency in remunerations. business uncertainty it would be shortsighted to believe that the recent stock market reaction has only been the result of misconduct and the lack of corporate governance. the world economy is still digesting the consequences from the deep retrenchment in capital spending, which started in 2000 in the high - tech and the telecommunications sectors. the investment climate was further muted by the terrorist attacks of last september, hitting hard other sectors such as air travel, tourism, and insurance. in short, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the adjustment of investment spending and the dim prospects of corporate earnings. while the worldwide weakness in business investment lies at the very heart of our present problems, at the same time the most recent signals from abroad reveal that new potential risks have emerged. the most recent economic indicators from the united states show that domestic demand is growing less strongly than anticipated. the confidence indices registered a decline for the months june and july. the labor market has recently shown increasing signs of weakness ; both in terms of employment and hours worked. these recent developments weigh heavily against household spending, which has been considered the lifeline of the u. s. economy. the fear is that many households are stretched, adding fears to the strength of household consumption and the resilience of the u. s. economy to withstand further shocks. u. s. households on average have low levels