investors, including from the middle east, to leverage on malaysia as an investment gateway to tap the rapidly growing investment opportunities in the east asian region. thirdly, this partnership also serves to enhance malaysia as a centre of product innovation in islamic finance. indeed, conscious efforts have been made to ensure a conducive environment for innovation in malaysia, including the development of the necessary pool of expertise and talent to drive such innovation. within bank islam itself, there is a track record and brand name for innovation, with the development of new business models and product offerings. this partnership would thus contribute towards accelerating this process and towards serving as a bridge to strengthen the relationship of the islamic financial markets as well as the investment and trade ties between the west asian and north african regions, with east asia. strengthening the capital of a financial institution, however, is not the only factor that will determine its capacity and potential to perform. equally important is the quality of its talent, the systems that it has in place, in particular, its risk management and ict systems and its governance structure, its leadership and its corporate culture. thus, while this capitalisation exercise will put bank islam in a stronger position to tap new opportunities, all the other elements also need to be in place to enable the institution to realise its true potential. sound corporate governance and effective management of banking institutions are vital to ensure their effective and sound functioning. in particular, significant shareholders are expected to play an active role to ensure that capable individuals are appointed on the board and senior management of banking institutions. bank negara malaysia had as early as 2001 required the board and management of bank islam to undertake remedial actions on several operational and control weaknesses. when the weaknesses were not adequately addressed, the process of reconstituting the board and management of bank islam was initiated in 2003. in such an exercise, key shareholders are expected to be proactive in making prudent and responsible action to remove any member or employee that is found to be unsuitable or not having the required calibre so as to avoid a prolonged process in the reconstruction of the board and management of the bank. it needs to be recognized that the responsibility for the safety and soundness at the institutional level rests primarily with the board and the management of each banking institution and the key stakeholders such as the significant shareholders. institutional investors should also have an active role and make swift and bold decisions in ensuring that only capable individuals are appointed and remain on the board and senior management of banking institutions.

manage and coordinate a programme whose essential elements are : • one, providing training to teachers, volunteers, peers and colleagues who would in turn pass on the knowledge in schools, in the workplace and in community - based organizations ; and • two, making use of existing financial service providers to deliver generic financial education to an expanded group of recipients. the central bank will be responsible for the preparation and standardization of the education material, for training of volunteers and for the overall management of the programme, including the mobilization of financial and other resources. priority groups the bank has identified five priority groups to be targeted for financial education. these groups are : 1. primary and secondary school students – this is an obvious priority category based on the well - accepted notion that financial education should begin in schools where kids should be taught the essentials about managing money and good financial habits from an early age. 2. the second priority group comprises young adults who are about to or have just entered the workplace. this group faces particular challenges, as they are targets for concerted advertising, for credit cards, loans, and insurance. in addition, they find themselves facing new financial obligations and most times, they are ill - equipped to make informed decisions. the plan is to locate these young people where they are – in tertiary institutions, in training programmes, in youth organizations or wherever they could be found in groups. among young people, attitudes towards savings and debt have changed dramatically and too many seem to live in a world whose motto is “ live for today and pay for it later ”. 3. a third group defined as priority are employees in the workplace, particularly those over 40 who do not have ready access to professional advice. for this group, the programme will focus on the need to accumulate adequate savings for retirement, which, on the basis of available information, is a major problem in trinidad and tobago. 4. the program will also identify community groups which could serve as avenues for reaching large numbers of lower - income and under - privileged households and individuals at risk of financial exclusion. the plan would be to work closely with the ngo community as well as with the ministry of community development and gender affairs to identify and focus on specific groups. 5. we have decided to include as a priority category new and prospective homeowners in government housing programmes. these beneficiaries of government housing are low - to - middle income households, many of whom are facing, for the first time, the need to include mortgage payments in an already tight budget equation