so many different ways, through good times and bad, to secure the city ’ s position as the pre - eminent global financial market place. and that, of course, my lord mayor includes the holders of your high office over so many years - and it includes the city corporation. we at the bank have enjoyed tremendous moral and practical - not to mention gastronomical - support in all our efforts to promote the reputation and prosperity of the city, and i hope that you may feel that we have been equally supportive of initiatives that you have taken to the same end. from my perspective it ’ s been a very warm and constructive relationship which i have no doubt will continue. you, gavyn, have certainly contributed to that relationship during your period in office and i am grateful to you for that. but more than that you have maintained the finest traditions of the mayoralty in the lead that you have given to the city. you have taken on an exhausting - and in this case i really mean exhausting - program - both at home and around the world in promotion of our interests and you have still found time, with the lady mayoress, to entertain us right royally this evening. we are all most grateful to you. so to you all - as i make the transition from who ’ s who? to who ’ s he? - i say thank you and farewell until we meet again - as i very much hope we will if ever vanessa and i manage to tear ourselves away from cornwall. i invite you all to rise and to join me in a toast of good health and prosperity to “ the lord mayor and the lady mayoress ”.

to surplus. perhaps as important, the scale of the differences has grown with more countries running surpluses or deficits of over 5 % of gdp. oil and other commodity inflation is part of the story, of course, but that does not account for the large current surpluses in most of east asia. here strong manufacturing growth resulting from higher labour productivity has not been matched by higher domestic spending so savings have grown ahead of even dramatic investment growth. a deliberate policy of fostering export industrial growth has slowed the rise of exchange rates that would reduce these imbalances. as a result the build - up in eme foreign assets have been held mainly as central bank reserves especially in asian countries ( chart 3 ). in total the foreign assets now held by eme central banks and governments is about $ 7 trillion dollars, which compares with only $ 60 billion gross foreign assets held by the uk government. many emerging economies concluded after the asian crisis a decade ago that they needed bigger liquid reserves in traditional government debt to defend themselves against volatility in financial markets even when that carried the likelihood of a negative return ( taking account of expected exchange the kuwait investment office is the in - house investment arm of the kuwait investment authority ( formerly known as the kuwait investment board ) and was established by sheikh abdullah al - salem al - sabah on 23 february 1953. edmund hillary and tenzing norgay reached the summit on 29 may 1953. these figures include the nics. excluding nics the estimated surplus is $ 596 billion ( 1. 1 % ). latest data show that current account deficits were 5 % of gdp or above not only in the united states but also in spain, greece, portugal, australia, new zealand, uk and iceland. rate movements ). but when the reserves outstripped the levels needed for that purpose, it was natural to look to increase the returns on investment by widening the range of investments. 5 and in the next few years, these current account surpluses are likely to remain high and the build up of foreign assets by governments in oil exporting and asian countries is likely to continue. according to the imf ’ s forecasts, the combined current account surplus of china and oil - exporting countries will be around $ 800 billion over the next 3 years. and the imf estimates that sovereign wealth fund assets could grow to $ 6 - 10 trillion within the next 5 years. the impact of swfs on financial markets these are huge numbers and swfs have become prominent