. three years later, the global financial crisis broke out. and it was largely caused by the very factors that he had identified. for raghu, financial markets play an important role for economic growth in the long term. however, financial markets have a tendency to deviate from fundamental values. financial regulation has therefore been a concern of his since well before the crisis. what are his recommendations in this regard? to be effective, regulation must avoid being procyclical, that is, over - regulating in a bust and de - regulating in a boom. rather, regulation must be comprehensive and contingent. consider two types of such regulation. first, instead of being required to raise permanent capital, institutions should arrange for capital to be infused when they are in trouble. one example of contingent capital is for banks to issue debt that page 2 / 4 automatically converts to equity under specified conditions. the second type of regulation is aimed at ‘ too big to fail ’ institutions. instead of limiting their size and activities, a more sustainable form of regulation requires these institutions to develop a plan that would enable them to be resolved over a weekend. both of these measures proposed by raghu have become fundamental elements of banking regulation in switzerland since the financial crisis. impressive policymaker i have known raghu for many years. from my personal experience i can say with conviction that he is not only an exceptional scholar but also an impressive policymaker. his career as a policymaker began at the international monetary fund ( imf ). in the aftermath of the 1997 asian financial crisis, the imf wanted to strengthen its financial expertise. anne krueger, then the imf ’ s first deputy managing director, asked raghu if he would be interested in becoming the imf ’ s chief economist. raghu replied : ‘ anne, i don't know any macroeconomics ’. however, this claim was neither convincing nor credible for the imf ’ s deputy managing director, and so at the age of 40, raghu was appointed as the imf ’ s chief economist. he was both the youngest - ever person to be assigned the position, and the first from an emerging - market nation. during his tenure at the imf he pushed the research department to focus on financial - sector issues and explore ways of integrating them into the imf ’ s macroeconomic models. this was long before modelling the financial sector more effectively became a high priority both in academia and central banking. after his three - year term at the im

we can ’ t escape each other anymore. the good news is that we have more power than ever to build a world of shared values and shared opportunities – and nowhere is this clearer than in africa. ” the indo - pacific region covers a huge geo - strategic and geo - economic territory, covering the western pacific ocean to the western indian ocean along the eastern coast of africa. as global economic power shifts from west to east, this region is rapidly gaining importance as the centre of trade, investment and cooperation. the indo - pacific contains close to half the world ’ s population and draws australia together with the rising powers of china and india, the dynamic sub - regions of northeast asia and southeast asia and the resource rich and sometimes volatile middle east and africa. moreover the region provides several of the world ’ s most important choke - points for global commerce. so, there could not have been a better theme for seminar. this meeting will dwell on a number of issues and i don ’ t intend to elaborate thereon. but allow me to throw some thrusts on some of the topical issues. when we look at asia, the bis central bankers ’ speeches growth of its intra - regional trade in the last decade has been quite inspirational and has helped in building new channels of growth. these have indeed helped asia to sustain its growth momentum in these challenging times and contain the spillover effects of lacklustre economic performance in traditional markets. africa, too, is gearing up its regional market, which has an immense potential. but africa has a big infrastructural disadvantage – countries throughout the continent are not well - connected. steady advances in regional integration and services will surely enable the move from overseas trade to trade between countries and across regions. increasingly, africa is making use of available technology to make progress on inclusive growth. the use of mobile - banking, this single most innovative instrument, has created ripples by increasing outreach to many of the unbanked that were excluded due to high operation costs in establishing branch network around the continent. this broad example will set the path for inclusive growth but it raises concerns for policymakers for financial stability issues arising therefrom. africa has, in the past, been victim of what is referred to as the “ natural resource curse ”. but today we are witnessing a new phenomenon with the surge in commodity prices. commodity - exporting countries have experienced appreciation of their currencies owing to increasing capital flowing in those countries to take advantage of the rising commodity prices. also