directors ’ network has emerged, enabling peer learning, and the sharing and exchange of experiences among financial institutions directors. role of stakeholders in elevating the standards of corporate governance in the financial services industry, shareholders play an important role to engage boards and hold them to account. demands for improvements in corporate governance could be driven by the institutional investors and minority shareholders. but for this to happen, they require relevant information on the financial institutions performance and operations. in this context, the bank has outlined proposals in the financial sector blueprint to require periodic audits of corporate and shariah governance to help investors better understand whether disclosed governance arrangements are reflected in actual practice. this will supplement the role of existing disclosure requirements which help investors assess the financial condition and risk profile of financial institutions. conclusion it is my hope that as we venture into the future, this workshop will steer a dialogue towards developing a deeper understanding of the contemporary issues that confront the industry and yield new perspectives and insights around governance issues. programmes such as this make an important contribution to that process. on that note, i wish you a productive and engaging workshop. bis central bankers ’ speeches

continues to be required, and i therefore call on all jurisdictions to intensify their commitment to achieving greater alignment. for its part, the central bank of bahrain will continue to provide its own strong support to initiatives aimed at narrowing these differences. with respect to accounting standards, the policies set by aaoifi, the accounting and auditing organisation for islamic financial institutions, provide a solid framework for islamic financial institutions. bahrain is one of the few jurisdictions to have made its standards mandatory, although others use them as guidelines. further promulgation of these standards would help increase consistency in accounting and sharia standards. similarly, in the field of financial regulation, we support the work of the islamic financial services board in developing various prudential standards, and would encourage other jurisdictions to also commit to implementing these standards over time. and finally, the third critical pillar under this heading is that of developing standard contract designs and associated documentation. progress here will help address the concerns sometimes expressed about the impact of different sharia rulings on the structuring of instruments, and the lack of certain types of instruments. it will also be instrumental in encouraging more liquid islamic capital markets. this critical third pillar, of course, is in many ways why we are here today, and i should like to pay tribute to the sterling efforts now under way within the industry, with the leadership of the iifm, to tackle these issues. i am now hopeful that real progress in this area is now within our grasp. you will hear during this conference updates on the initiatives now underway, in conjunction with the international capital market association and the international swaps and derivatives association, to develop sharia compliant hedging instruments, as well as standardized repo and commodity murabaha contracts. these will be important breakthroughs for the industry, and we very much look forward to their realization later this year. these initiatives have gained good support from the industry, but i would also call on regulators to help support these initiatives : we too can also play an important role in bringing about greater alignment, by encouraging the use of standardized contracts and documentation, where appropriate. on this positive note, i should like wish you a productive conference, and to thank you for your kind attention.