Keynote speech by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the International Institute of Finance (IIF) Asia Regional Economic Forum, Singapore, 4 March 2009.
Introduction
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good afternoon.
I welcome the International Institute for Finance (IIF) for holding its Asia Regional Economic Forum in Singapore. It is good to see such a diverse group gathered here for this Forum.
An unprecedented crisis
The most commonly used adjective to describe the current financial crisis is "unprecedented". Indeed, many aspects have been exceptional –
- the speed at which events unfolded and triggered a series of domino effects;
- the scale of the impact, which has become global; the range of financial institutions and investors affected;
- the near-perfect correlations of markets and asset classes that had been uncorrelated when conditions were benign;
- and the range of unconventional measures taken by financial authorities globally to try and arrest the unfolding crisis.
The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of the BIS.