Ladies and gentlemen, may I welcome you to tonights Gala Dinner of the 40th General Assembly of the International Federation of Stock Exchanges the FIBV For those of you from overseas, welcome to Australia.
Ive just flown in from Canberra, where Federal Parliament has resumed sitting. We have been adjourned for the past few weeks, which coincided with a sporting carnival that you will have noticed recently took place in Sydney.
Changes in Financial Markets Due to Technology
The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius Faster, Higher, Stronger. It is designed for sports. It could just as easily apply to todays financial markets.
Faster: We live in an era where electronic commerce makes the instantaneous transfer of billions of dollars across continents possible at the touch of a mouse button, with repercussions for governments, regulators and stock exchanges.
Higher: As the marketplace becomes truly global, as barriers of distance, time, language and regulation diminish through the use of new communication technologies, the level of competition among market participants has never been higher. Your market, and your competitors, are not just those on the trading floor in your home city, but the traders at their desks in Tokyo, New York, Berlin or, increasingly, anywhere a person can plug in a computer and connect a modem.
Stronger: Well we hope so. The capitalisation of the worlds stock markets is growing phenomenally. This reflects the strength of world economic growth and the economic recovery of many of those countries affected by the financial crisis that swept through Asia in 1997. It also reflects the willingness of many individual investors to enter the stock market, many for the first time. The protection of such investors through appropriate regulation is an issue to which I will return.
I know as Australias Treasurer the key role that Stock Markets play in raising capital and facilitating the investment choices of institutional and small investors. In recent years in Australia we have seen a dramatic growth in the number of first time investors. In 1991 only 14.7 per cent of Australias adult population owned shares and now that figure has risen to approximately 54 per cent who own shares, either directly or indirectly. The proportion of the public that owns shares is higher in Australia than anywhere else in the world.
And behind the recent increases in investor numbers, listing, turnover and capitalisation we are seeing stock markets making major structural changes as they strive to respond to the demands of their client base. To take a local example, the Australian Stock Exchange has undergone significant structural change in recent years; the move to screen based trading, demutualisation in 1998, T + 3 settlement in 1999, global alliances such as the agreement with Singapore made earlier this year and ongoing improvements in trading, clearance and settlement arrangements.
The traditional forms of ownership of many exchanges are giving way to more dynamic commercial ventures. These changed forms of ownership resulting from exchange demutualisations mean that exchanges have different pressures and different motivations from those under the more traditional mutual arrangements.
The New Economy
Of course, Stock Exchanges can be useful windows on the composition of an economy and how it can change over time. Again using a local example, 10 years ago Australias All Ordinaries Index was dominated by resource companies, which accounted for 40% of the Index. Financial stocks were only 17%.
Today, those positions have reversed. Financial stocks are worth 40% of the All Ords, while resources are down to 14%. This does not mean that the value of Australias resource sector has fallen in the last 10 years. It has not.
But the financial services sector has boomed. Like other developed countries, Australias service industries are contributing an ever-growing proportion of national output.
10 years ago there was not one telecommunications company listed on the ASX. Today, telecommunications accounts for 14% of the All Ordinaries Index. It will account for even more when the Government is able to fully privatise Telstra (which, by the way, will also enable the Commonwealth to be free of net debt).
10 years ago, media stocks were 2% of the All Ords. Today, they are 19%.
I am sure that many exchanges represented here tonight would have a similar story.
As new methods are devised and new technologies are employed to create wealth, markets (including stock exchanges), regulators and government must be ready to adapt, and adapt quickly, to maximise economic benefit whilst protecting confidence.
NEW TECHNOLOGY UPTAKE
Australians are keen users of new technology. Computer access by Australians in 1999 was the 6th highest in the world (492 accesses per 1000 persons). By May this year, over half (54%) of the households in Australia had access to a computer at home.
In the 12 months to May 2000, 6% of Australias adult population (802,000 adults) were Internet shoppers.
Im a keen user of the Internet and email myself. Of course, there are also some risks associated with electronic communication. It wasnt so long ago that many computers in the world were infected with the so-called "Love Bug" virus.
Im pleased to say that I wasnt caught by it. I did receive the "I Love You" email. But I smelled a rat immediately.
Nobody ever says "I love you" to a Treasurer.
The utilisation of new technology can assist to improve a nations productivity. And it is the way in which a country can harness new technologies, including E-Commerce and the Internet, to improve its economic performance that is the test of whether a nation can access the benefits of productivity improvements, the mark of the so-called New Economy.
A recent study by the OECD entitled "Is There A New Economy?" identified Australia as one of only six of its 29 member countries to have significantly lifted trend real per capita growth through the 1990s.
In fact, Australias recent productivity growth has been more impressive than that of the United States. The most recent OECD Economic Outlook notes that annual multi-factor productivity growth for the United States averaged 0.8 per cent in the 1980s and 1.0 per cent over the period 1990-98. The comparable figures presented for Australia are 0.9 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively.
And while I suspect that the outstanding performances of the worlds Olympic athletes in Sydney may have inspired a slight dip in Australias workplace productivity over the past 2 weeks, the improvement in productivity in Australia over the last decade or so has been crucial to our ability to be internationally competitive and to make use of the opportunities presented by new technologies and globalised marketplaces.
Evolution of the ASX
The developments in the Australian Stock Exchange in recent years is being driven by a variety of factors, such as the demands of exchanges customers, the intermediaries using them, competitive pressures and technological changes. It is a trend to which Governments and regulators must respond to ensure that the path is clear for Exchanges to compete freely in this dynamic environment and also to ensure that economies can keep pace with the burgeoning flow of financial products being created and traded world wide.
It is clear that technology is one of the driving influences in creating new market opportunities for Exchanges. Technology has exposed domestic suppliers to greater competition, driven innovation in developing products, and driven innovation in distributing products. Now producers and suppliers can reach across geographic barriers to different cities, and different countries, and different parts of the world, to different consumers, with an explosion of products matching the demands of increasingly sophisticated consumers who can access those products via the internet.
In the past where producers and suppliers were banned because of geographic barriers, now they reach across those barriers, they reach across the regulatory geographic areas, they reach across the old characteristics and the old demarcation lines. And technology, competition and consumer demand are blurring traditional boundaries between products.
New Economy Old Values: Consumer Protection in the Modern Economy
But with the new opportunities that this technology creates there are new threats and new challenges for consumers and businesses. Undoubtedly many of you are well aware of the dangers to consumers of spam e-mail messages or bulletin board discussions which falsely talk up the value of particular stocks and which are designed to induce potential investors to purchase these stocks. And with the rise in internet trading, financial portals, on-line brokers and so on, market fragmentation is a real threat to exchanges.
Many first time investors have never experienced a severe market down turn. Their relative lack of sophistication means that they may easily be duped into investing their money in products that will never be able to deliver the financial returns that they expect. And if these investors, who are becoming a growing proportion of participants in Exchanges, lose confidence in the integrity of the markets, they will look to other safer, more reliable channels for their money, either domestically or overseas.
Here in Australia we are conscious of the need to maintain investor confidence while simultaneously working to foster dynamic and innovative financial markets. And so the Australian Government has implemented a number of reforms in recent times which put in place reforms which reinforce that for the New Economy to flourish, it must still be founded on sound values.
Old values. Sound laws. Vigilant corporate regulators to enforce those laws and independent courts to adjudicate on them. All of these are essential. But we also rely on individuals conforming to ethical standards.
Laws are important, but they can only do so much. If laws do not reflect community standards of what is expected, all of the corporate regulators and courts will not prevent those laws from being broken.
If bad practice becomes morally acceptable, if "cutting legal corners" is praised as entrepreneurial behaviour rather than condemned as unethical conduct, then a great restraining force is lost.
Government must ensure that its corporate regulation is as efficient and as effective as possible. But it does mean that there must be more to it than just words on a page. There must also be a culture that expects and requires the observance of ethical standards of behaviour.
In Australia we have been reviewing our regulatory framework for financial services, in the light of the rapid transformations that are now taking place. As a medium sized economy we must keep up with and try to outpace international developments. And we believe we are now well on the way to providing a sound framework for innovation, for growth, and for confident consumer decision making. We want to ensure Australia is well placed to take advantage of globalisation and technological advancement
Our recent reforms have been aimed at promoting greater efficiency, enhanced competition, whilst maintaining system stability and consumer protection. The key features of these reforms have been described by the IMF as path breaking. We now have a framework for dealing with financial conglomerates. We have a better-focussed, accountable structure for consumer protection.
We have established a twin peaks model of consumer regulation, a single prudential regulator the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, which goes across all financial products - banks, non-bank financial deposit taking institutions, superannuation funds - and focuses on the peak of prudential regulation. And the market integrity regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Importantly, these reforms were introduced not in response to a crisis, but to prevent one.
CLERP
And now we are implementing a new system of corporate law reform, entitled the Corporate Law Economic Reform Program. We call it that because we want to remind people of the ultimate goal of corporate law. We want to bear in mind that the Corporation is a vehicle for creating economic activity by which people can join together with limited liability to accomplish economic goals they can not accomplish as individuals. And to bear in mind that consumer protection has an economic focus as much as an ethical focus. Our first tranche of reforms were implemented earlier this year, with fundamental changes to fundraising, takeovers, corporate governance and accounting standards. And a second wave of reforms is due for introduction into Parliament before the end of this year.
They are ambitious proposals. An integrated framework for all financial products, all financial service providers and all markets. Comparable and consistent regulatory treatment of all advice and selling activities. Single licensing for all financial intermediaries, including insurance agents, brokers, securities advisers, dealers, futures brokers, as well as any other person engaged in financial services. We believe this will benefit consumers who will have less confusion when they deal with intermediaries acting in a consistent way and subject to a comparable set of obligations. The Bill will put in place a simplified authorisation process for market operators, and clearing and settlement facilities.
Exchanges and Mergers
As I mentioned earlier, as Exchanges demutualise different motivational structures begin to operate. Exchanges are now, more than ever, profit seeking commercial enterprises, and whilst it is essential that Exchanges keep core values to maintain the integrity of their markets, exchanges are also eagerly exploring arrangements for foreign mergers and global alliances to ensure that they remain profitable and internationally competitive commercial enterprises.
In 1990 the Australian Stock Exchange had 32 foreign companies listed. Today it has 117. The world has been coming to the Exchanges, but now, more than ever, we are seeing the Exchanges looking to go to the world through mergers and alliances.
But Governments and regulators must remain vigilant whilst Exchanges from around the world come together. As those involved in proposals to link exchanges and form alliances know, forging strong international alliances is hard work - a demanding task and Governments world wide are very aware of this push toward globalisation. Here in Australia we recognise the need to maintain active participation in the global marketplace and to work towards developing international best practice standards and a regulatory environment which does not impede Exchanges in embracing the globalised economy.
International Financial Architecture
The Australian Government would like to see steady progress in the improvements of the international financial architecture. We are doing it in a number of ways.
In the Manila Framework Group, a Group established in response to the Asian economic and financial crisis, we prepared a transparency report on all of our institutions to assess ourselves on meeting worlds best practice, and offered the opportunity to other countries in the region to help with similar examinations.
Weve been active on international financial architecture within the G20. Weve contributed to the important work of the Financial Stability Forum on highly leveraged institutions. And weve been working hard to extend the application of relevant principles through bodies such as the OECD, the World Bank and UNCITRAL.
Weve been active in promoting institution and capability building in our region through APEC, for example, in corporate governance and through a newly launched initiative on company accounting and financial reporting. The importance of strong institutions during the financial crisis brought home to this region how essential stability and good regulatory practice is for economic outcomes.
And finally, I would like to make mention of Australias work in developing its global financial centre. We have established a Centre for Global Finance, AXISS Australia, based in Sydney. AXISS Australia aims to make Australia a leading financial centre in the Asia Pacific Region. It is headed by Mr Les Hosking who was the former Chief Executive Officer of the Sydney Futures Exchange. AXISS Australia is designed to assist international companies explore business opportunities in Australia and is a vehicle for high level strategic dialogue between the Australian Government and the financial sector.
CONCLUSION
While markets will rise and fall on a multitude of factors some rational and some not those economies that promote sound institutions, investor confidence, an open framework that can adjust to external shocks and adapt to external developments, and an open system which allows the allocation of resources to maximise returns these economies are likely to benefit the most and deliver the best benefits in rising living standards and better services to their people.
Thank you.
Address by the Honourable Peter Costello, MP Treasurer of Australia to International Federation of Stock Exchanges Gala Dinner Queensland Art Gallery 3 October 2000 7.30pm |
| 40TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE INTERNATIONAL
FEDERATION OF STOCK EXCHANGES (F.I.B.V.) REUTERS GALA DINNER Ladies and gentlemen, may I welcome you to tonights Gala Dinner of the 40th General Assembly of the International Federation of Stock Exchanges the FIBV For those of you from overseas, welcome to Australia. Ive just flown in from Canberra, where Federal Parliament has resumed sitting. We have been adjourned for the past few weeks, which coincided with a sporting carnival that you will have noticed recently took place in Sydney. Changes in Financial Markets Due to Technology The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius Faster, Higher, Stronger. It is designed for sports. It could just as easily apply to todays financial markets. Faster: We live in an era where electronic commerce makes the instantaneous transfer of billions of dollars across continents possible at the touch of a mouse button, with repercussions for governments, regulators and stock exchanges. Higher: As the marketplace becomes truly global, as barriers of distance, time, language and regulation diminish through the use of new communication technologies, the level of competition among market participants has never been higher. Your market, and your competitors, are not just those on the trading floor in your home city, but the traders at their desks in Tokyo, New York, Berlin or, increasingly, anywhere a person can plug in a computer and connect a modem. Stronger: Well we hope so. The capitalisation of the worlds stock markets is growing phenomenally. This reflects the strength of world economic growth and the economic recovery of many of those countries affected by the financial crisis that swept through Asia in 1997. It also reflects the willingness of many individual investors to enter the stock market, many for the first time. The protection of such investors through appropriate regulation is an issue to which I will return. I know as Australias Treasurer the key role that Stock Markets play in raising capital and facilitating the investment choices of institutional and small investors. In recent years in Australia we have seen a dramatic growth in the number of first time investors. In 1991 only 14.7 per cent of Australias adult population owned shares and now that figure has risen to approximately 54 per cent who own shares, either directly or indirectly. The proportion of the public that owns shares is higher in Australia than anywhere else in the world. And behind the recent increases in investor numbers, listing, turnover and capitalisation we are seeing stock markets making major structural changes as they strive to respond to the demands of their client base. To take a local example, the Australian Stock Exchange has undergone significant structural change in recent years; the move to screen based trading, demutualisation in 1998, T + 3 settlement in 1999, global alliances such as the agreement with Singapore made earlier this year and ongoing improvements in trading, clearance and settlement arrangements. The traditional forms of ownership of many exchanges are giving way to more dynamic commercial ventures. These changed forms of ownership resulting from exchange demutualisations mean that exchanges have different pressures and different motivations from those under the more traditional mutual arrangements. The New Economy Of course, Stock Exchanges can be useful windows on the composition of an economy and how it can change over time. Again using a local example, 10 years ago Australias All Ordinaries Index was dominated by resource companies, which accounted for 40% of the Index. Financial stocks were only 17%. Today, those positions have reversed. Financial stocks are worth 40% of the All Ords, while resources are down to 14%. This does not mean that the value of Australias resource sector has fallen in the last 10 years. It has not. But the financial services sector has boomed. Like other developed countries, Australias service industries are contributing an ever-growing proportion of national output. 10 years ago there was not one telecommunications company listed on the ASX. Today, telecommunications accounts for 14% of the All Ordinaries Index. It will account for even more when the Government is able to fully privatise Telstra (which, by the way, will also enable the Commonwealth to be free of net debt). 10 years ago, media stocks were 2% of the All Ords. Today, they are 19%. I am sure that many exchanges represented here tonight would have a similar story. As new methods are devised and new technologies are employed to create wealth, markets (including stock exchanges), regulators and government must be ready to adapt, and adapt quickly, to maximise economic benefit whilst protecting confidence. NEW TECHNOLOGY UPTAKE Australians are keen users of new technology. Computer access by Australians in 1999 was the 6th highest in the world (492 accesses per 1000 persons). By May this year, over half (54%) of the households in Australia had access to a computer at home. In the 12 months to May 2000, 6% of Australias adult population (802,000 adults) were Internet shoppers. Im a keen user of the Internet and email myself. Of course, there are also some risks associated with electronic communication. It wasnt so long ago that many computers in the world were infected with the so-called "Love Bug" virus. Im pleased to say that I wasnt caught by it. I did receive the "I Love You" email. But I smelled a rat immediately. Nobody ever says "I love you" to a Treasurer. The utilisation of new technology can assist to improve a nations productivity. And it is the way in which a country can harness new technologies, including E-Commerce and the Internet, to improve its economic performance that is the test of whether a nation can access the benefits of productivity improvements, the mark of the so-called New Economy. A recent study by the OECD entitled "Is There A New Economy?" identified Australia as one of only six of its 29 member countries to have significantly lifted trend real per capita growth through the 1990s. In fact, Australias recent productivity growth has been more impressive than that of the United States. The most recent OECD Economic Outlook notes that annual multi-factor productivity growth for the United States averaged 0.8 per cent in the 1980s and 1.0 per cent over the period 1990-98. The comparable figures presented for Australia are 0.9 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively. And while I suspect that the outstanding performances of the worlds Olympic athletes in Sydney may have inspired a slight dip in Australias workplace productivity over the past 2 weeks, the improvement in productivity in Australia over the last decade or so has been crucial to our ability to be internationally competitive and to make use of the opportunities presented by new technologies and globalised marketplaces. Evolution of the ASX The developments in the Australian Stock Exchange in recent years is being driven by a variety of factors, such as the demands of exchanges customers, the intermediaries using them, competitive pressures and technological changes. It is a trend to which Governments and regulators must respond to ensure that the path is clear for Exchanges to compete freely in this dynamic environment and also to ensure that economies can keep pace with the burgeoning flow of financial products being created and traded world wide. It is clear that technology is one of the driving influences in creating new market opportunities for Exchanges. Technology has exposed domestic suppliers to greater competition, driven innovation in developing products, and driven innovation in distributing products. Now producers and suppliers can reach across geographic barriers to different cities, and different countries, and different parts of the world, to different consumers, with an explosion of products matching the demands of increasingly sophisticated consumers who can access those products via the internet. In the past where producers and suppliers were banned because of geographic barriers, now they reach across those barriers, they reach across the regulatory geographic areas, they reach across the old characteristics and the old demarcation lines. And technology, competition and consumer demand are blurring traditional boundaries between products. New Economy Old Values: Consumer Protection in the Modern Economy But with the new opportunities that this technology creates there are new threats and new challenges for consumers and businesses. Undoubtedly many of you are well aware of the dangers to consumers of spam e-mail messages or bulletin board discussions which falsely talk up the value of particular stocks and which are designed to induce potential investors to purchase these stocks. And with the rise in internet trading, financial portals, on-line brokers and so on, market fragmentation is a real threat to exchanges. Many first time investors have never experienced a severe market down turn. Their relative lack of sophistication means that they may easily be duped into investing their money in products that will never be able to deliver the financial returns that they expect. And if these investors, who are becoming a growing proportion of participants in Exchanges, lose confidence in the integrity of the markets, they will look to other safer, more reliable channels for their money, either domestically or overseas. Here in Australia we are conscious of the need to maintain investor confidence while simultaneously working to foster dynamic and innovative financial markets. And so the Australian Government has implemented a number of reforms in recent times which put in place reforms which reinforce that for the New Economy to flourish, it must still be founded on sound values. Old values. Sound laws. Vigilant corporate regulators to enforce those laws and independent courts to adjudicate on them. All of these are essential. But we also rely on individuals conforming to ethical standards. Laws are important, but they can only do so much. If laws do not reflect community standards of what is expected, all of the corporate regulators and courts will not prevent those laws from being broken. If bad practice becomes morally acceptable, if "cutting legal corners" is praised as entrepreneurial behaviour rather than condemned as unethical conduct, then a great restraining force is lost. Government must ensure that its corporate regulation is as efficient and as effective as possible. But it does mean that there must be more to it than just words on a page. There must also be a culture that expects and requires the observance of ethical standards of behaviour. In Australia we have been reviewing our regulatory framework for financial services, in the light of the rapid transformations that are now taking place. As a medium sized economy we must keep up with and try to outpace international developments. And we believe we are now well on the way to providing a sound framework for innovation, for growth, and for confident consumer decision making. We want to ensure Australia is well placed to take advantage of globalisation and technological advancement Our recent reforms have been aimed at promoting greater efficiency, enhanced competition, whilst maintaining system stability and consumer protection. The key features of these reforms have been described by the IMF as path breaking. We now have a framework for dealing with financial conglomerates. We have a better-focussed, accountable structure for consumer protection. We have established a twin peaks model of consumer regulation, a single prudential regulator the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, which goes across all financial products - banks, non-bank financial deposit taking institutions, superannuation funds - and focuses on the peak of prudential regulation. And the market integrity regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Importantly, these reforms were introduced not in response to a crisis, but to prevent one. CLERP And now we are implementing a new system of corporate law reform, entitled the Corporate Law Economic Reform Program. We call it that because we want to remind people of the ultimate goal of corporate law. We want to bear in mind that the Corporation is a vehicle for creating economic activity by which people can join together with limited liability to accomplish economic goals they can not accomplish as individuals. And to bear in mind that consumer protection has an economic focus as much as an ethical focus. Our first tranche of reforms were implemented earlier this year, with fundamental changes to fundraising, takeovers, corporate governance and accounting standards. And a second wave of reforms is due for introduction into Parliament before the end of this year. They are ambitious proposals. An integrated framework for all financial products, all financial service providers and all markets. Comparable and consistent regulatory treatment of all advice and selling activities. Single licensing for all financial intermediaries, including insurance agents, brokers, securities advisers, dealers, futures brokers, as well as any other person engaged in financial services. We believe this will benefit consumers who will have less confusion when they deal with intermediaries acting in a consistent way and subject to a comparable set of obligations. The Bill will put in place a simplified authorisation process for market operators, and clearing and settlement facilities. Exchanges and Mergers As I mentioned earlier, as Exchanges demutualise different motivational structures begin to operate. Exchanges are now, more than ever, profit seeking commercial enterprises, and whilst it is essential that Exchanges keep core values to maintain the integrity of their markets, exchanges are also eagerly exploring arrangements for foreign mergers and global alliances to ensure that they remain profitable and internationally competitive commercial enterprises. In 1990 the Australian Stock Exchange had 32 foreign companies listed. Today it has 117. The world has been coming to the Exchanges, but now, more than ever, we are seeing the Exchanges looking to go to the world through mergers and alliances. But Governments and regulators must remain vigilant whilst Exchanges from around the world come together. As those involved in proposals to link exchanges and form alliances know, forging strong international alliances is hard work - a demanding task and Governments world wide are very aware of this push toward globalisation. Here in Australia we recognise the need to maintain active participation in the global marketplace and to work towards developing international best practice standards and a regulatory environment which does not impede Exchanges in embracing the globalised economy. International Financial Architecture The Australian Government would like to see steady progress in the improvements of the international financial architecture. We are doing it in a number of ways. In the Manila Framework Group, a Group established in response to the Asian economic and financial crisis, we prepared a transparency report on all of our institutions to assess ourselves on meeting worlds best practice, and offered the opportunity to other countries in the region to help with similar examinations. Weve been active on international financial architecture within the G20. Weve contributed to the important work of the Financial Stability Forum on highly leveraged institutions. And weve been working hard to extend the application of relevant principles through bodies such as the OECD, the World Bank and UNCITRAL. Weve been active in promoting institution and capability building in our region through APEC, for example, in corporate governance and through a newly launched initiative on company accounting and financial reporting. The importance of strong institutions during the financial crisis brought home to this region how essential stability and good regulatory practice is for economic outcomes. And finally, I would like to make mention of Australias work in developing its global financial centre. We have established a Centre for Global Finance, AXISS Australia, based in Sydney. AXISS Australia aims to make Australia a leading financial centre in the Asia Pacific Region. It is headed by Mr Les Hosking who was the former Chief Executive Officer of the Sydney Futures Exchange. AXISS Australia is designed to assist international companies explore business opportunities in Australia and is a vehicle for high level strategic dialogue between the Australian Government and the financial sector. CONCLUSION While markets will rise and fall on a multitude of factors some rational and some not those economies that promote sound institutions, investor confidence, an open framework that can adjust to external shocks and adapt to external developments, and an open system which allows the allocation of resources to maximise returns these economies are likely to benefit the most and deliver the best benefits in rising living standards and better services to their people. Thank you. |