percent and a broad index of metals prices losing about one - third of its value, dragging down growth in many commodity producers. although rapid commodity output growth in recent years, which has reflected in part the response of producers to previous price increases, has certainly contributed to the fall in commodity prices, the slowing of demand growth from china and emerging asia has also been an important factor. while the path ahead for commodity prices is, as always, uncertain, declining investment rates in emerging asia, particularly china, present the prospect of a prolonged decline in the growth rate of commodity demand. and prices could remain low for quite some time, which seems particularly true for metals, such as copper and steel, used heavily in construction and investment. however, for oil, the implications of a shift from investment - led growth to a consumption - led model are less certain. on a per capita basis, china ’ s consumption of oil remains far below that of advanced economies, in line with china ’ s lower rate of car ownership. per capita oil consumption tends to increase with wealth, such that further bis central bankers ’ speeches income growth in china has the potential to provide strong support for the oil market in the coming years. indeed, more generally, the world stands to benefit from a transition to more consumption - led growth in emerging asia. under a successful transition toward more - balanced growth, emerging asia can be expected to import a broader array of goods and services both from within the region and globally. whether a country benefits from or is harmed by emerging asia ’ s transition is likely to be determined by the flexibility of that country ’ s economy in adapting to shifts in asian demand away from commodities and inputs for assembly into the region ’ s exports and toward services and goods to meet asian final demand. to recap, the transition to slower growth in the emerging asian economies, as well as a shift toward domestic demand and consumption and away from external demand and investment in the region, is likely to have profound implications for the global economy. for one, trade growth is unlikely to resume its rapid pace of recent decades, and the long climb in commodity prices, which has benefited commodity producers, appears to have come to an end. can india recharge growth in emerging asia? one source of uncertainty in this outlook, as alluded to earlier, is the prospect for india to provide a new growth engine for asian development. in principle, india has enormous potential to recharge the asian growth engine. for one, india is relatively un

##s, exchanges, and clearing systems all have huge stakes in containing their risks as individual agents and risks to the system as a whole. private market participants can discourage excessive risk taking by choosing to do business with those firms that demonstrate sound risk management systems and portfolios that balance appropriately risk and expected return. if private markets are going to perform their risk control functions, then market prices must send the right signals to all participants about the risks and rewards of a particular transaction or at a given firm. in order to improve the ability of market prices to accurately reflect risks and returns, i believe that we should take action ourselves and encourage action by others in at least three areas. first, we should seek ways of improving the transparency of financial institutions and markets. as we all know, full information is a fundamental requirement of free and competitive markets. more particularly, financial institutions and individual investors must be well informed about their own and their counterparties ’ exposures, the nature of new financial instruments, and the extent of overall market liquidity. i believe that banks and other financial institutions could significantly improve their disclosures by providing more information to the market about their risk management policies and practices and about the values of internal risk measures. at present, the market seems to grant great weight to bank regulatory capital ratios that are only crude indicators of an institution ’ s risk profile. that attention is driven in large part by the fact that these regulatory measures provide a consistent basis for comparison. the regulatory and financial communities should work together to identify more meaningful statistics to meet the market ’ s needs. at the international level much work is being done, and much remains. one of the key lessons of our most recent financial crises is that international accounting and public disclosure standards are often inadequate. an important step forward was the publication last november by the international basle committee on banking supervision of guidelines for enhancing bank transparency. that report provides guidance to banks and banking supervisors around the world on the nature of core disclosures that should be provided to the public. much more, however, should be done to provide the public and supervisors with the information they need to exert effective market discipline. a second area where we could improve market discipline is in affecting how market participants view what has come to be known as the too - big - to - fail problem. in this regard, i would emphasize that the fdic improvement act of 1991, or fdicia, contains rather tough language about too - big - to - fail – language that i assure you the