recovery is not harmed through rising cost of capital in the global financial markets. we support developing a set of principles around which each country creates its own system based on local conditions. banking levy or financial activity tax is only one of many options available to promote financial stability and to achieve equal burden sharing. regulations on capital, leverage and liquidity and other macro prudential tools may also be used to achieve similar results. dear participants, let me give you some background information on the turkish economy, before delving on the issue of closer cooperation within the region in the aftermath of global crisis. like all other emerging market economies, the turkish economy was tested by the global turmoil and has proven its strength and resilience. average annual growth of almost 7 percent between 2002 and 2007 faltered in 2008 and turned into a contraction in 2009 as the exports and investment flows dried up considerably due to the global crisis. however, all signs now indicate that the economy has rebounded quickly and is headed towards renewed growth and an improving fiscal balance in 2010. the resilience of the turkish financial system, combined with our flexible and effective liquidity management framework shaped by the experiences of past crises, has turned out to be considerable assets in managing the recent crisis. as a result, growth forecasts of international institutions for the turkish economy have been revised upwards repeatedly and reached as much as 7. 2 percent, the highest among oecd countries. the crisis and slowly emerging global architecture in its aftermath present major opportunities that have once again highlighted the importance of economic cooperation and coordination among countries and economies. in the case of the middle east this is perhaps best embodied in the multiple synergies in financial integration and joint investment opportunities between turkey and the arab world. it is a great pleasure to see that the relations within our region have been strengthening on a solid ground. the strong historical, cultural and social ties among our countries constitute a solid basis to further develop multilateral relations. commercial relations between turkey and the middle east have been increasing quite rapidly in the last few years, as well as cooperation and exchange of information and dialogue between public authorities. global crisis made clear that especially our region is one of the high growth bases in the world, which in turn, constitutes a potential to grow tight commercial and financial relations. recently, turkey, jordan, lebanon and syria signed a joint declaration on thursday to launch an initiative to form a free trade zone and a visa - free zone. these nations will also set up a joint cooperation council. significant

eurosystem is developing a securities holdings statistics database. the financial crisis has highlighted the lack of transparency in a number of financial markets as well as difficulties in assessing financial exposures and linkages between institutions. securities holdings represent a field where exposures are often concentrated, and a lack of sufficiently comprehensive, consistent and granular information has been identified. the aim of developing a detailed dataset on securities holdings is to combine holdings of large players in the euro area with information on the individual issuers across the world. this will provide a potentially very useful tool for both monetary policy and macro - prudential analysis. second, the eurosystem has been extending its database to provide more detailed information on the activities of financial institutions and instruments. this covers more detailed balance sheet information on banks but also on investment funds, insurance corporations and pension funds. complex securitisation operations, which played a major role in the financial crisis, are reflected in new data on the activity of financial vehicles resident in the euro area. information on who is lending to whom in the euro area economy can help us to understand the process of financial intermediation better. it is now published on a quarterly basis in the matrix of the integrated sector accounts. the provision of quarterly information on cross - border holdings of financial assets and liabilities by euro area residents allows users to detect cross - border exposures. third, the eurosystem is amending its statistical legal acts to align its economic and financial statistics with the recently revised international statistical standards. these revised standards bis central bankers ’ speeches aim at achieving consistency between domestic sector accounts and statistics for the rest of the world. this consistency will give users a much more complete view of inter - linkages between the rest of the world and the domestic sectors of the economy. reporting burdens the ecb is well aware that closing information gaps requires significant efforts by all parties involved – the statisticians, the reporting agents and the data users. it is also clear now more than ever that a lack of good quality information on which to base decisions can be far more costly to society than the collection of new, additional data. in any case, all data collections by the eurosystem are subject to a prior, strict “ merits and cost ” procedure. importantly too, there is a strong emphasis on ensuring that there are no double collections of the same information by different statistical authorities and that, as far as possible, existing information serves multiple purposes. these data collections must be detailed and comprehensive enough