Introduction

This National Economic Outlook conference will be focusing on a range of internal and external issues that are likely to be key factors influencing the medium and longer-term growth prospects for the Malaysian economy. As a contribution to this discussion, I would like to consider certain aspects of economic security in the Southeast Asian region.

The theme of my comments will be to suggest that while, certainly, "all policies are local" in the sense that domestic economic policy-making remains paramount, globalization and regionalism are changing the nature of the economic policy-making game in the region. There are new economic opportunities to foster markets and promote prosperity - - but there are new economic risks and even economic threats as well. In order to make best use of the new opportunities we need to find ways of ameliorating the risks and threats so as to strengthen economic security in the region. Greater regional cooperation supported by stronger regional institutions is needed to achieve these goals.