by scaling back investment plans, tightening its fiscal stance, and strengthening prudential banking regulations. indonesia has strengthened its policy stance in continuous dialogue with us, and has recently reached agreement with the fund on a major program consisting of : strong monetary and fiscal policies to bring about orderly adjustment in the economy and restore confidence to financial markets ; a major restructuring of the financial sector, along with measures to ensure its future soundness ; and significant deregulation measures and trade reforms that should improve economic efficiency immediately and over the longer term. the fund has agreed to support this program with a loan of $ 10 billion in a total package of $ 23 billion, of which $ 18 billion will consist of multilateral financing. on top of that, a contingency safety net is being established through which an important group of countries have declared their readiness to complement our package in the case of unexpected need. naturally, it will take time for these efforts to bear fruit. but developments in recent months have by no means wiped out the achievements of past decades. on the contrary, the region ’ s longer term fundamentals - - including its high domestic saving rates, strong fiscal positions, dynamic private sectors, and recent gains in competitiveness - - remain favorable. moreover, all of these countries still have a long way to go to catch up with advanced economies. thus, with sound policies, they should be able to sustain high rates of growth for another two decades or more. in the less distant future, growth can be expected to rebound strongly after a relatively short, but sharp, weakening of economic activity, especially in thailand, and a rapid narrowing of external deficits. in fact, we are already seeing improvements in exports, even though recent exchange rate changes have not had much opportunity yet to generate their effects. and as these adjustments take place, each of these countries will have seized the opportunity to strengthen their economies in fundamental ways. this leads me to agree with those in the region who see this crisis not as a blight on the future, but as a blessing in disguise. indeed, after this period of adjustment, these economies will emerge stronger than before. in the meantime, i hope that some perspective about the benefits of global markets will be maintained. first, we must give credit where credit is due : the capital provided by global markets has been a key factor in southeast asia ’ s exceptional growth rates and its ability to lift so many out of poverty. certainly, there are risks in tapping global markets to which no country

fund surveillance, which, as you know, lies at the heart of the imf ’ s efforts to maintain an orderly international monetary system. in order to detect financial tensions as early as possible, we have sought to make our dialogue with member countries more continuous and probing and put more emphasis on the continuous and timely provision of accurate data. we are also concentrating more on policies decided at a regional level, on the regional implications of national economic policies, on banking and financial sector soundness, and on the policies and institutions that sound financial systems require. second, we are doing what we can to help markets function more smoothly. considerable progress has been made in liberalising current account transactions worldwide so that countries can take advantage of the opportunities offered by the expansion of world trade. now, we must turn our attention to fostering an orderly liberalization of capital account transactions, so that countries can also reap the benefits of global capital markets, while minimizing their risks. to this end, imf members have agreed that the fund ’ s charter should be amended to make the liberalization of capital movements one of the purposes of the fund and to extend the fund ’ s jurisdiction to capital movements, with appropriate safeguards, including transitional arrangements, to ensure that liberalization is neither premature nor unduly delayed. at the same time, the imf is actively encouraging all countries to be transparent about their economic performance by improving the dissemination of economic and financial data to the public. greater transparency will help strengthen market discipline and avoid market surprises that can lead to disruptive market reactions. to this end, the fund has developed a set of standards regarding the quality, coverage, frequency, and timeliness of data made available to the public and has established a dissemination standards bulletin board on the internet to which 43 economies have now subscribed, including hong kong, indonesia, korea, malaysia, the philippines, singapore, and thailand. procedures have also been put in place through which countries can make known to the markets, and to the public in general, the fund ’ s views on their economic policies and situation. recognizing the importance for growth of creating an environment that encourages private sector activity, the fund has also become more active - - in close collaboration with the world bank, regional development banks, and others - - in promoting the “ second generation ” reforms that i referred to earlier. these include developing an institutional framework that will, among other things, provide an efficient, professional justice system, help limit arbitrary and corrupt government