singapore and the chinese companies who choose singapore as their financing location will enjoy the harvest of good fortune in time to come. with that, i would like to extend my heartiest congratulations once again to the singapore exchange for its representative office opening in beijing. i encourage the exchange to play its role well in serving the specific needs of the chinese companies with the ambition to grow regionally and in doing so, contribute to the strengthening partnership between the china and singapore. have a great evening, thank you.

responses, not just market responses, may reinforce this pull - back, by restricting the flow of capital and liquidity outside home markets. not only will this ring - fencing of national systems weaken international banking and trade, it may introduce new risks to financial stability when global banks are not able to deploy liquidity from one part of the banking group to other parts in need. better international co - ordination in the implementation of rules is therefore needed to ensure that they serve their intended national objectives without weakening the global system as a whole and introducing new vulnerabilities. a sound financial system anchored by a core of strong local banks just as we derive lessons from troubled banking systems, it is worth looking too at those that have not run into problems. it is notable that among the jurisdictions with systemically important financial centres, canada, australia, hong kong, and singapore have held up well during the global financial crisis. a little remarkably, the top ten banks in bloomberg ’ s latest annual ranking of the world ’ s strongest banks included four canadian banks, the three singapore local banks and two hong kong banks. there is no room for complacency – the financial crisis has shown how volatile financial markets can be and the speed with which contagion can spread. banks have to be constantly vigilant against the build up of risks and maintain strong buffers against contingencies. but let ’ s look at these four banking systems for a moment, – canada, australia, hong kong and singapore. they share two characteristics in common. ( i ) they are anchored by a handful of banks with a significant share of the domestic market. ( ii ) these “ anchor ” banks are closely supervised and regulated. several economies, including some in emerging countries, which had completely opened up their banking systems and left themselves without local anchors, have now found themselves to be vulnerable. banking systems need strong anchor players, who are well regulated and diligently supervised, and are able to take the long - view, enabling their interests to be closely aligned with that of the economy. in a crisis too, strong anchor banks may be needed to acquire distressed financial institutions whose failure could otherwise have a systemic impact. but having anchors with a substantial share of the domestic market is not sufficient to ensure resilience. without adequate competition, they will earn what the economists call oligopolistic rent, rather than serve the needs of an economy by innovating and introducing efficient services. anchor banks have to be competitive. this is