to be in a range of usd6 - 7 billion. to put that number into perspective, this would have been more than enough to offset our negative net outflows in 2023. and sure enough, these efforts are paying off. we see consistent conversions of foreign income as well as repatriation and conversion of retained foreign income and assets. since we did this, the ringgit has performed much better, holding its own against the us dollar despite the recent developments that have seen a further adjustment and delays to potential us rate cuts. it has also strengthened 1. 8 % against our major trade partners since february, when we started these efforts. the foreign exchange market volume and two - way flows have improved significantly, indicating a higher level of liquidity. the average daily fx turnover has risen from usd15. 5 billion in 2023 to over usd17 billion year - to - date. these are not one - off gains, either. investment income and export revenue are recurring in nature, so there will be consistent and regular flows back into ringgit and we can expect the ringgit's performance and strengthening to be sustained. thirdly, we continue to look at how we can further encourage our corporates and businesses to bring back their foreign currency balances. we heard, for instance, that many corporates found it more expedient not to bring foreign currency balances back, to avoid the approval process for reinvesting abroad. one initiative that we are working on because of this is to pilot a fast - track pre - approval framework for corporates who bring back foreign currency funds and convert to ringgit, to enable them to re - invest abroad when the time comes. for the few corporates that we have engaged on this, the response has been very encouraging, with some even bringing back and converting immediately. add to this the eventual albeit delayed turn in global interest rates, and the outlook for the ringgit is looking strong. where do we go from here? having said that, it is never a done deal when it comes to the evolving market outlook. new risks could emerge to derail us or present new challenges. or simply, what we're doing now is still not enough. i assure you that we can still do more. but let me assure you as well that using the opr or introducing capital controls like we did during the asian financial crisis is not among our options. our monetary policy is determined based on the growth and inflation outlook, and we do

in good faith. those repayments were funded at least partially with deposit accumulation in foreign branches. early in october, two icelandic banks received sizeable margin calls from the ecb. the ecb demanded that they be met immediately, which would have driven the banks to collapse. the news of these margin calls spread widely. for reasons that were not explained, the ecb withdrew the margin calls at the last moment, in spite of the fact that the central bank of iceland had been informed that such decisions by the ecb were irrevocable. in retrospect, perhaps the safest way to prevent the collapse of the icelandic banks would have been, at the outset, to place more stringent limits on their operations than were placed on financial institutions in other eea states ; in other words, to deny them the rights conferred by the eea agreement. had this been done, iceland would not have been a full participant in the internal market of the european union. i will leave it to others to answer the question of whether political support would have been forthcoming for the imposition of such restrictions on the banks at that time. on the other hand, in view of recent developments, it is obvious that the banks took advantage of extremely favourable conditions to expand more rapidly than was sustainable for the long term as things developed. because of their relative size, the icelandic banks were more vulnerable than many other businesses even to moderately adverse developments, not to mention the catastrophic events that have shaken the global financial environment in the past year. the question of when it would have been right to intervene – and how – is extremely difficult to answer, however. no one has perfect foresight. many lessons will doubtless be learned from the experience of the past few years, including lessons about capital and liquidity requirements, concentration of financial company ownership, financial links between owners and financial companies, and financial companies ’ ownership of other businesses, to name a few. but those lessons are outside the scope of my talk today. conditions in the global financial system are at their worst since the great depression, particularly after the collapse of lehman brothers. it is virtually an unprecedented crisis. perhaps it is possible to say after the fact that the fall of lehman sealed the fate of iceland ’ s banks. once lehman had failed, nothing could have saved them. assets had become almost impossible to sell due to the crisis of confidence and the global credit squeeze the icelandic banks faced a much harsher operating environment and could expect that strict limitations would be