to the biggest corporate and consumer market in the world. this naturally increases the demand for services in the region as well. equally important is coordination on cross - border regulatory and institutional elements within the region. discussions in asean's economic community blueprint 20255 could provide hints on how to address such cross - border issues. for example, the business community has in the past raised issues regarding the differing requirements and regulations among asean countries with incomplete mutual recognition agreements, and the burdensome processes and inadequate transparency in some member countries. although substantial progress has been made, differences among members remain in terms of ease of doing business and trading across borders. these challenges are noted in other asian countries as well. while the eu has been aiming for economic integration through the establishment of a single market, asian countries, such as the members of asean, have preferred to preserve each country's sovereignty. this is certainly appropriate, reflecting the region's diversity. having said that, as regional economies become more dependent on each other, more work is necessary to reduce barriers to free trade of goods and services and for direct investment. this would boost intraregional demand as a source of growth. it is also essential to work jointly in developing deep and liquid financial markets to enhance the effective use of regional savings and to invite long - term capital inflows. as a basis for further strengthening such economic ties, it is also important to patiently strive to deepen fundamental mutual understanding among countries and people in the region. as i mentioned earlier, asian countries are highly diverse not only in economic aspects such as income, industrial structure and technological progress, but also in many other fields such as religion and culture. for this reason, it is important to foster a stronger sense of trust while respecting each other's unique characteristics. 5 asean's economic community ( aec ) blueprint 2025 enlists concrete actions to be taken by 2025 in order to realize the aec envisaged in asean's community vision 2025. engaging with the global community asia must also actively engage in global discussions beyond pure economic issues. for example, according to research by a consulting firm comparing the soft power of different countries, only four countries from asia are in the top 30, 6 as shown in chart 4. with around 60 % of the global population, asia has a responsibility to play a constructive role in global issues such as climate change and inequality. through effective dialogue, ideas and values originating in asia could provide a positive impetus to the global

powerful monetary easing. specifically, it decided on such measures as expanding the range of eligible collateral for such purposes as the bank's lending to financial institutions, and relaxing the terms and conditions for the facility of temporarily lending japanese government securities ( jgss ) held by the bank. in addition, the bank decided to consider the introduction of a facility for lending exchange - traded funds ( etfs ) that it holds to market participants. while i will not explain these measures in detail today, they all will provide support for continuing with powerful monetary easing through the bank's smooth fund - provisioning and securing of market functioning. in combination with the clarification of forward guidance, these measures likely will strengthen public confidence in continuing with powerful monetary easing, thereby contributing to further ensuring the achievement of the price stability target and leading to stability in financial markets. given economic developments in japan, where prices and inflation expectations have not risen easily, the bank considers it necessary to maintain a positive output gap for as long as possible by keeping interest rates at sufficiently low levels for a prolonged time, in order to achieve the price stability target. some measures that i outlined earlier also are based on such thinking. in this way, central banks always consider the most appropriate monetary policies for their respective situations, with a view to achieving their objective of price stability. this does not only apply to japan. for instance, the u. s. federal reserve has been proceeding with monetary policy normalization for the past few years, such as through incrementally raising its policy interest rate. after the turn of the year, however, it temporarily stopped raising the policy interest rate due to such factors as the slowdown in the global economy, even though interest rate levels still have been quite low compared to the time before the global financial crisis. in addition, central banks abroad, including the federal reserve, recently have worked on reviewing their monetary policies after the global financial crisis and discussing new monetary policy frameworks as well as specific tools. in my understanding, the background to such moves is that ( 1 ) the real interest rate neutral to economic activity, or the natural rate of interest, has been on a declining trend in many advanced economies in recent years, mainly reflecting a decrease in the potential growth rate and a constant excess of funds, and ( 2 ) difficulties in enhancing the effectiveness of monetary policy under such circumstances have been taken into consideration. of course, japan and economies such as the united states cannot be treated in the same way. however,