Held from 18 – 24 October 2008, the programme was organised by the Securities Industry Development Corporation (SIDC), the education and training arm of the Securities Commission (SC). The theme for this year’s programme focused on strengthening emerging markets through “Competition, Collaboration and Compliance”.

In her keynote address, SC Chairman Dato’ Zarinah Anwar, who is also the Chairman of SIDC, emphasised the need for regulators to adopt new ways of thinking about competition, collaboration and compliance to prepare them for the challenges ahead.

She identified three key issues for emerging market regulators to consider to further strengthen their markets:

• Regulators must avoid both excessive competition as well as excessive focus on more compliance and regulation. The former will lead to a regulatory ‘race to the bottom’ where long-term stability and investor protection are sacrificed for short-term gain. The latter, meanwhile, will stifle innovation and risk sharply curtailing long-term growth.
• Emerging market regulators need to more than ever understand the interconnectedness of their markets with others and implement effective cross-border coordination of policies.
• As emerging markets become more relevant and gain a bigger voice in the global financial arena, they will need to pursue relevant competition, appropriate collaboration and maintain high standards of regulatory compliance to come to the fore of the global playing field.

The programme was presented by 23 speakers from 10 countries including regulators from the United Kingdom and the United States of America who made the case for a new set of relationships based on collaborative competition and the right amount of regulation which would enable emerging markets to stabilise and prosper despite the financial storm.

Speakers this year included representatives from the Securities Commission Malaysia, China Securities and Regulatory Commission, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Ontario Securities Commission, Securities and Exchange Board of India, Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand, Singapore Exchange Limited, United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and the United Kingdom Futures and Options Association.

A total of 61 countries from all over the world have taken part in this programme since it first started in 2001.