of that year. initially the movement took root in the agriculture and fisheries sector, which in those times employed a significant part of the population. but later, as malta developed socially and economically, the movement continued to flourish and to expand, and new cooperatives were set up in practically every sector of the economy. indeed, there are currently some 60 cooperatives in malta, with over 5000 members, spread over a wide range of activities. these include the traditional agriculture and fisheries sector, transport and media, management and marketing consultancy services, wholesale, health, maritime, archaeology, restoration, fair trade, tourism, youth services and community care. our cooperatives are affiliated with the international cooperatives alliance ( ica ), and so abide by the seven basic principles established by the alliance mentioned previously. banks too have been with us for a long time. indeed one can trace the origins of banking in malta to the times of the knights of st john, though more rapid development took place under british rule, helped by the island ’ s strategic and central position in the british empire. in 1826, the anglo - egyptian bank started operations here, and through a series of mergers and acquisitions this later became barclay ’ s bank dco ( dominion, colonial and overseas ), which soon established an extensive branch network on the island. a number of smaller maltese - owned banks were also established, and some of these eventually merged to become the national bank of malta, which also established a branch network. there followed a period when these two major banks were nationalised, but following the subsequent bis central bankers ’ speeches liberalisation of the economy they were again privatised, with the government retaining only a 25 % share in bank of valletta. more banks began to operate here after malta joined the european union, but these were all commercial, joint stock banks. no one, till recently, seems to have thought of setting up a cooperative bank in malta. the distinctive characteristic of cooperative banks, as previous speakers have explained, is that they are banking entities that, for the most part, are owned by their members. the latter are both owners and customers of their bank. but this is not their only characteristic. generally, cooperative banks are deeply rooted in their regions or communities. they are very much involved in local development and contribute to the sustainable development of their communities, because their members and officers generally belong to the communities in which they operate. their main concern is not to make spectacular short - term gains for a small group

auditors to prevent cozy relationships undermining the integrity of the audit. a periodic change of the firm might have led to more serious questioning of the accounts. further, some us firms have announced plans to include, as an expense, the cost of executive stock options. the changes aim to more accurately describe the revenues and costs associated with companies ’ primary business. and standard and poor ’ s has introduced new benchmarks for reporting corporate earnings. these are all positive examples of participants working together to enforce the spirit of the rules under which financial markets operate. what has been done recently in switzerland to improve the transparency of swiss financial markets? some efforts have already started some time ago. most notably, the swiss exchange and the swiss business federation “ economiesuisse ” co - ordinated their efforts to develop two sets of rules which became effective on july 1, 2002 : the “ swiss code of best practice ” and the “ directive concerning information on corporate governance ”. this will hopefully lift the standards for corporate governance and improve the level of transparency for the publicly traded firms in switzerland. we have also seen political initiatives aiming at more transparency in remunerations. business uncertainty it would be shortsighted to believe that the recent stock market reaction has only been the result of misconduct and the lack of corporate governance. the world economy is still digesting the consequences from the deep retrenchment in capital spending, which started in 2000 in the high - tech and the telecommunications sectors. the investment climate was further muted by the terrorist attacks of last september, hitting hard other sectors such as air travel, tourism, and insurance. in short, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the adjustment of investment spending and the dim prospects of corporate earnings. while the worldwide weakness in business investment lies at the very heart of our present problems, at the same time the most recent signals from abroad reveal that new potential risks have emerged. the most recent economic indicators from the united states show that domestic demand is growing less strongly than anticipated. the confidence indices registered a decline for the months june and july. the labor market has recently shown increasing signs of weakness ; both in terms of employment and hours worked. these recent developments weigh heavily against household spending, which has been considered the lifeline of the u. s. economy. the fear is that many households are stretched, adding fears to the strength of household consumption and the resilience of the u. s. economy to withstand further shocks. u. s. households on average have low levels