to look back favourably on the economic peace and certainty of the past and contrast it with the perception of insecurity and instability that surrounds the present economy. why is this so? ( a ) those who know a little bit of history are aware of the fact that in about 1900 we were probably the richest country in the world in terms of income per head. now we are in the middle of the pack of developed oecd economies. so this gives the impression of a country in long run decline, but from a somewhat artificial starting point. we were the ‘ kuwait of 1900 ’ : a country with a very small population and a large resource endowment producing commodities which were very highly priced at the time. but like any prosperity based on scarcity prices it could not last, as the decline in our terms of trade during the century showed. i will return to this theme when i discuss the future. there are three surveys which ask respondents to report their confidence in ( a ) their own personal economic situation and ( b ) the state of the economy ; these are the westpac - melbourne institute consumer sentiment index, the acci survey of investor confidence, and the yellow pages business index. all three surveys show that nearly always the majority of respondents show less confidence in the economy than in their own personal economic position. in 97 per cent of occasions this is true for the westpac - melbourne institute and yellow pages surveys, and on 94 per cent of occasions it is true for the acci survey. an extreme example of changing economic fortunes as a result of changing terms of trade comes from 18th century french history, and the contrasting attitude of france to defending its two main american colonial possessions – canada and haiti. canada was given up with relatively little resistance, but two costly wars were fought in a vain effort to retain haiti. the ranking of haiti as more valuable than canada was purely an economic one based on the high price of sugar two hundred years ago. a similar story involves the english and the dutch in the 17th century. under the treaty of breda of 1667, the dutch gave up their claims on manhattan to the english in order to retain the island of run ( in what is now indonesia ). the superior value they placed on run was due to it being the principal source of nutmeg. ( b ) for others, the nostalgia is directed at the 1950s and 60s. there is no doubt that around the world this period of post - war reconstruction was a ‘ golden era ’ for economic growth

zeti akhtar aziz : opening of bank negara malaysia beijing representative office and initiatives to promote bilateral trade and investment remarks by dr zeti akhtar aziz, governor of the central bank of malaysia ( bank negara malaysia ), at the opening of the bnm beijing representative office, beijing, 18 november 2013. * * * it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this official opening of bank negara malaysia ’ s beijing representative office. the opening of this representative office today is an occasion of unprecedented significance for us. this beijing office is bank negara malaysia ’ s very first presence in asia. this is a reflection of the growing importance of china in the global economy and the international financial system and the very significant and longstanding financial and economic ties between malaysia and china. this momentous occasion also marks the dawn of a new chapter as our bilateral relations transitions and evolves reflecting the significant changes taking place in our respective economies and financial systems. for many decades now, the foundation underpinning the strength and dynamism of our relationship is our ability to continually harness the complementarities that exists between our economies. while bilateral trade has consistently been expanding at double digit growth rates over the recent two decades, the breadth and depth of our relations have also evolved and expanded into greater financial linkages. in parallel to our growing economic ties, our financial institutions have also ventured into each financial systems, further strengthening our financial and economic connectivity. currently, two of china ’ s biggest banks, namely bank of china and icbc have operations in malaysia while malaysia ’ s two largest banks, maybank and cimb have established their presence in china. our beijing representative office, being inaugurated today, also signifies an important milestone in the cooperation between the people ’ s bank of china and bank negara malaysia. our two central banks have long cooperated in many areas of common interest in particular in the area of financial cooperation. in july of 2005, our currencies transitioned into a more flexible exchange rate regime at the very same moment. this enabled malaysia to transition to this new regime effectively and efficiently. bank negara malaysia has for more than a decade also participated in the fixed income market in china. we were among the first central banks in the world to be awarded the qualified foreign institutional investor ( qfii ) license to invest in china ’ s fixed income onshore financial markets and to be granted access to the china interbank bond market. our close central bank cooperation is also reinforced through the