Haruhiko Kuroda: How finance and ICT combine - a historical view on the future

Keynote speech by Mr Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor of the Bank of Japan, at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) Spring Membership Meeting, Tokyo, 6 June 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

I. Introduction

Good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to welcome you all. Let me thank Chairman Weber, President Adams and the IIF Team for organizing this conference.

Looking back, the first IIF G20 conference was convened in London in early March 2009, when the global financial system remained under severe stress. One topic discussed at the conference was the role of the international financial institutions, including the Asian Development Bank I was leading at that time, in mobilizing liquidity for emerging market and developing countries. A month later, when the G20 leaders met in London and agreed to strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust, they also agreed to increase very substantially the resources and enhance the tools available through these institutions to support the continued flow of capital to these countries.

That agreement was proved to be vital in fighting the crisis. With the assistance of the institutions, emerging market and developing countries were largely successful in avoiding the contagion of the crisis and their strong growth supported world growth.