improvements on a number of fronts. business conditions, as reported in surveys, are at the highest level in almost 10 years. there are also growing signs that private investment outside the resources sector is picking up. we have been waiting for this for some time. for a number of years, animal spirits had been missing, with many firms preferring to put off making decisions about capital spending. it appears that some of this reluctance to invest is now passing. according to the june quarter national accounts, private non - mining business investment increased strongly over the first half 2017, to be around 10 per cent above the level at the start of 2016. non - residential building approvals have increased to be above the levels of recent years and there is a large pipeline of public infrastructure investment to be completed ( graph 4 ). the decline in mining investment has also largely run its course. 4 / 11 bis central bankers'speeches there has also been positive news on the employment front. over the past year, the number of people with jobs has increased by more than 2½ per cent, a positive outcome given that the working - age population is increasing at around 1½ per cent a year. growth in full time employment has been particularly strong. the various forward - looking indicators suggest that labour market conditions will remain positive in the period immediately ahead. here in western australia, there are also some signs of improvement after what has been a difficult few years. the drag from declining mining investment is diminishing. businesses are feeling more positive than they were a year ago and employment has been rising after a period of decline. at the same time though, conditions in the housing market remain difficult, with housing prices and rents continuing to fall in perth. weak residential construction has also weighed on aggregate demand over the first half of this year, although building approvals and liaison reports point to some stabilisation in the period ahead ( graph 5 ). 5 / 11 bis central bankers'speeches for australia as a whole, the recent national accounts – which showed a healthy increase in output of 0. 8 per cent in the june quarter – were in line with the bank ’ s expectations. these, and other recent data, are consistent with the reserve bank ’ s central scenario for gdp growth averaging around the 3 per cent mark over the next couple of years. this is a bit faster than our current estimate of trend growth in the australian economy, so we expect to see a gradual decline in the unemployment rate. this should lead to some pick - up

risk and uncertainty in the financial markets, particularly visible during the recent financial crisis. financial market infrastructures ( fmis ) have stood the test of time by settling obligations whenever they were due and provided market participants enormous confidence to transact business without the risk of defaults and failures during periods of uncertainty and volatility. nevertheless, the need for sound risk management and governance with focus on areas like liquidity and credit risks has been realized by all the stakeholders and this has acted as the driving force behind the initiatives to review the existing standards as a part of crisis proofing exercise. principles for financial market infrastructure ( pfmi ) are part of such initiatives. pfmi is meant for the financial market infrastructure ( fmis ) like systemically important payment systems ( sips ), central securities depositories ( csds ), securities settlement systems ( ssss ), central counter parties ( ccps ) and trade repositories ( trs ) ( newly included ) which facilitate the recording, checking and settlement of financial transactions. the cpss and iosco have published new pfmi replacing their previous principles and standards viz. ( i ) core principles for systemically important payment systems ( cpsips ) ( 2001 ), ( ii ) recommendations for securities settlement systems ( rsss ) ( 2001 ) and ( iii ) recommendations for central counterparties ( rccp ) ( 2004 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches these 24 principles ( pfmi / 2011 ) which have come in place of the existing standards include new features like ( i ) default handling of clearing participants ; ( ii ) addressing of operational risk ; ( iii ) principles on segregation and portability ; ( iv ) tired participation and ( v ) handling of business risk. the new principles in essence reflect the learnings from the recent financial crisis. along with these principles five responsibilities have been assigned to the regulators. they are : i. fmis should be subject to appropriate regulation, supervision and oversight by the central bank, market regulator or other relevant authority ; ii. these authorities should have the powers and resources to carry out their responsibilities in regulating, supervising and overseeing fmis ; iii. authorities should clearly define and disclose their regulations, supervisory & oversight policies with respect to fmis ; iv. authorities should adopt the relevant internationally accepted principles for fmis and apply them consistently ; and v. authorities should cooperate with each other, both domestically and internationally in promoting the safety and efficiency of fmis. as we observe, the focus of the