26. 06. 2018 taking up of office by the governor of the banco de espana pablo hernandez de cos governor honourable ministers and authorities, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues and friends, i believe today calls, above all, for a round of gratitude. first, i wish to thank ministers calvino and montero for their presence here today. may they rest assured i am firmly committed to maintaining the close and loyal collaboration traditionally offered by the banco de espana to the ministries for the economy and finance. i also wish to thank the previous minister, roman escolano, for his presence at this ceremony, and for his proposal and defence of my appointment before the parliamentary committee for the economy and competitiveness. and my gratitude extends to the representatives of the committee accompanying us today. i undertake to make every effort to improve the capacity of the banco de espana to face the challenges addressed during the parliamentary committee hearing. ministers, as i am surrounded above all by colleagues, i trust you will allow me to continue in a more informal tone. as you know, including a three - year tour at the european central bank, i now have two decades behind me at the banco de espana. professionally speaking, this is, then, my home. it is a real honour for me to have been appointed governor. but, above all, i feel a great responsibility at having inherited the enormous legacy of an institution with the history, functions and position in the spanish economy of the banco de espana. i wish to begin this new stage thanking those people who have steered my career over the years. i have learnt from all of them and their teachings have been a source of wealth for me. my sincere thanks to all of them. thanks, of course, to jose luis malo de molina, under whose leadership of the research department i have pursued most of my career, and, among others, eloisa ortega and jose maria bonilla. they were most forthcoming with their trust and have, at different times, been a major source of guidance and support for me. thanks also to fernando restoy, above all for being a point of reference in terms of competence and dedication to public service. thanks especially to jose manuel gonzalez paramo, who oversaw my ph. d. and took me to frankfurt. that experience gave me, early on, a first - hand view of the work of the european central bank and of the banco espana ’ s potential as a member of the eurosystem. naturally, my greatest gratitude is

##ing knowledge, enable people to know each other better, and provide the basis for future cooperation. conclusion to conclude, let me summarise. there are three essential tasks we face in promoting greater integration of islamic financial markets. the first is to encourage greater economic integration and increased cross border flow of trade and investments. economic integration drives financial integration and vice versa. the second task is to foster appropriate legal, regulatory and supervisory frameworks that effectively cater for the specificities of the islamic services providers ; and to work towards greater convergence of rules and practices in islamic finance. this requires greater trust and stronger ties among supervisors. the third is to cultivate stronger people - to - people bonds across all levels, through training, conference and dialogues. there is a saying which is common to the chinese and arabs which goes, “ the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step ”. i am glad to note that a lot of progress has already been made on all the three tasks. however, the journey ahead is long. let us continue to work together towards integrating the islamic financial markets. in this way, we can grow much faster and much more, bringing greater economic benefit to our regions. finally, we are honored to be given the opportunity to host ifsb ’ s 6th annual summit next year, which will be a landmark event for singapore and our islamic finance industry. may i islamic research and training institute. bahrain institute of banking and finance. international centre for education in islamic finance. thank the ifsb council, professor rifaat and the ifsb secretariat. i would like to extend a very warm welcome to you all to singapore.