will also depend on our workforce – who is working and until what age, and whether workers can move easily to where the best jobs are and where they are most needed. in light of all these unknowns, the bank of canada has to use various models, indicators, as well as information gathered from businesses, and a good deal of judgment to come up with its estimates. 3 our analysis focuses on the two variables that determine actual output and whose trends determine potential output, that is, labour input ( or total hours worked ) and labour productivity ( or real output per hour worked ). the results of our most recent analyses tell us that the output gap is sizable and that the growth rate of potential is likely to remain fairly steady at around 2 per cent in coming years. but, before i go into further detail on the outlook, let me step back and describe how we got to where we are now. a tale of troughs and trends for that i have a short story and a long story. i ’ ll begin with the short story : the recession. as i said, canada weathered the global financial crisis relatively well, but we were severely affected nonetheless. in the space of three quarters in 2008 and 2009, the level of output fell by 4 per cent. the export - oriented sectors ( including resources ) were hardest hit, with gdp dropping by 15 per cent ( chart 1 ). across canada, almost 400, 000 jobs were lost. see s. poloz, “ returning to natural economic growth ” ( speech to the vancouver board of trade, 18 september 2013 ). in practice, separating potential from actual output amounts to distinguishing between the underlying trend and cyclical movements in output. different approaches can be used to extract these trends, ranging from very simple mechanical filters to structural models. bis central bankers ’ speeches the recession also led to a drop in the growth rate of potential output ( chart 2 ). some businesses shut their doors. machinery and other capital were left idle or scrapped altogether. rather than investing in new capital, other firms made do with old equipment. these factors combined to make workers less productive. our best judgment is that trend labour productivity growth might have fallen to less than half a per cent during that period and that potential output troughed at about 1. 5 per cent. but as i said, there is also a long story. that story has two parts : trend labour productivity and trend labour input. trend labour productivity i ’ ll start with trend labour productivity. from the mid

international centre of origination and issuance of islamic financial instruments, fund and wealth management, islamic financial activities in international currencies and takaful and retakaful businesses. thirdly, kliifex 2006 also provides opportunities to present relevant, pertinent and timely information on islamic finance to different levels of key stakeholders. in the era where customers are becoming more discerning and demanding greater product differentiation and value added services, it is imperative for the islamic financial institutions to provide information that is beyond the features of the specific product. the information must be timely, easily comprehensible and at an appropriate depth so as to comply with the disclosure requirements required under the corporate governance practices for islamic financial transactions as well as to facilitate comparability of products by the consumers. it is our collective responsibility to enhance the public's understanding and appreciation on the features of islamic banking and takaful products and the shariah wisdom associated with them. all players need to capitalize on these initiatives for the financial industry to achieve sustainable success and unleash the potential gains of the islamic finance in malaysia and abroad. i wish that the kliifex 2006 and subsequent years will be the platform to fully realise the essence and aspirations and propagations that i have mentioned earlier. i also wish that our commitment to achieve future success of the industry as reflected in this event by the joint efforts and collaboration of the regulators, the industry, the market participants and the relevant parties will be further enhanced moving forward. in this regard, i would again congratulate aibim on its continuous effort undertake the initiatives in promoting islamic finance, particularly by organizing this event. on this note, i wish you a successful and eventful week. dengan lafaz bismillahirrahmanirrahim, saya dengan sukacitanya merasmikan pelancaran " kuala lumpur international islamic financial expo 2006 ". thank you.