gan kim yong : how private markets can underwrite asia's growth story keynote speech by mr gan kim yong, deputy prime minister and minister for trade and industry, and chairman of the monetary authority of singapore, at the superreturn asia conference, singapore, 25 september 2024. * * * distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning to all of you. i am happy to join all of you here at the superreturn asia conference. a. since its debut in singapore in 2022, superreturn asia has served as a valuable platform for private equity and venture capital professionals to network and discuss investment trends, strategies and opportunities. b. the strong turnout today reflects the value of the event to our investors and fund managers. one of the predominant themes across regional and global conferences is that of geopolitical tensions, especially between the us and china. a. as they are the two largest economies of the world, accounting for about 40 % of global gdp, b. their strategic rivalry has caused significant impact beyond both countries, especially on trade and investment. asia – a region of opportunities despite such geo - economic tension, asia – and in particular, asean – remains a glowing, bright spot. a. against the backdrop of a 10 % decline in global foreign direct investment ( fdi ) flows, fdi flows to asean held strong, and reached a high of us $ 230 billion in 2023. b. fdi in financial activities was the highest contributor of inflows to asean last year, increasing by 52 % to us $ 92 billion. this was followed by us $ 51 billion of manufacturing investments, and us $ 21 billion of investments in professional, scientific and r & d activities. c. the us was the single largest contributor, accounting for about one - third of the 1 / 7 bis - central bankers'speeches fdi flows. china was third, accounting for 8 % of the flows, following an increase of 20 %. d. the renewable energy supply chain was a major recipient of fdi in asean. i. between 2020 and 2023, renewable energy - related industries attracted an average of more than us $ 27 billion of investments annually, about 25 % of all announced greenfield investment activities. ii. these include critical minerals, extraction and processing, renewables manufacturing, and renewable power generation. e. looking ahead, there is good reason to be optimistic about asean, and asia. i. riding on a young and growing population, asean is poised to

relative to the trajectory expected in december last year, the projection for headline inflation for 2019 has remained largely unaltered. by ensuring accommodative financing conditions, monetary policy will continue to support domestic demand by mobilising idle resources. this will lead to a build - up of domestic price pressures and ultimately pull underlying inflation up as remaining slack in the economy is gradually reabsorbed and the output gap narrows further. in turn, this will facilitate a durable return of inflation back to a level that is below, but close to, 2 % over the medium term. today, an important element keeping underlying price pressures subdued is muted wage dynamics, which are shaped by many factors. at this stage, besides weak productivity developments, there is still a significant degree of labour market slack that keeps a lid on wage growth. furthermore, the process of setting wages is to some extent backward - looking in a number of euro area countries, reflecting formal and informal indexation mechanisms. 2 additionally, the timing of wage negotiations plays a role in postponing the point in time when growing confidence that inflation is approaching the ecb ’ s intended medium - term level starts to become more visible in aggregate wage figures. moreover, weak wage growth could also reflect previous downward wage rigidities : difficulties in reducing wages during earlier stages of the crisis may result, symmetrically, in a slower upward adjustment of wages as labour market conditions improve. 3 overall, while we are certainly seeing a firming, broadening and more resilient economic recovery, we still need to create a sufficiently broad and solid information basis to build confidence that the projected path of inflation is robust, durable and self - sustained. underlying inflation pressures still give scant indications of a convincing upward trend as domestic cost pressures, notably wage growth, remain subdued. importantly, the economic recovery and the outlook for price stability are still predicated on the very favourable financing conditions that to a large extent depend on continued monetary policy support. absent that quantum of support, the progress towards a sustained adjustment that we see in our projections is likely to be slower or even stall. therefore, we need to look through the recent surge in inflation, which is driven by transient factors that will probably fade before long. our conclusion that a very substantial degree of monetary accommodation is still needed for underlying inflation pressures to build up and support headline inflation in the medium term remains valid. of course, monetary policy cannot be the only source of support for growth : action from other 2 / 3 bis