Mr. Nyers, Mr. Janossy, Mr. Fekete-Gyor, Ambassador Mr. Lee, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is my great honor to represent Central Deposit Insurance Corporation to sign the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between National Deposit Insurance Fund of Hungary and Central Deposit Insurance Corporation of Taiwan. This is an important milestone to our two organizations with respect to the exchange of experience in deposit insurance systems and closer collaboration.
Since its establishment, the National Deposit Insurance Fund of Hungary, or NDIF, has successfully achieved its goal and fulfilled its responsibilities for protecting depositors and helping to maintain financial stability. Its achievements could be proved by the stable development of the Hungarian financial systems in the past decade, which is the most prominent among the emerging economies. Besides, the advanced devices developed by NDIF, such as the payout system, has also demonstrated its efficiency and effectiveness as a deposit insurer. Central Deposit Insurance Corporation also has handled about 50 problem member institutions in the past years. On the eve of the 20th Anniversary of the CDIC and the transition from the temporary blanket guarantee to the limited coverage system, this formal tie between NDIF and CDIC is especially meaningful to us.
In January 2005, I paid a visit to NDIF to exchange valuable experiences in implementing deposit insurance and discuss the detail of further collaboration. Besides, we also visited the Chairman Mr. Farkas of the Hungarian Financial Supervisory Authority (HFSA) and Managing Director Mrs. Toth of the National Fund for the Institutional Protection of Savings Cooperatives (OTIVA). We thus received a more comprehensive understanding of the functions of each and their interrelationships. Due to a similar development in Taiwan, hereby I would also like to mention the successful experience about OTIVA for facilitating the development of the credit cooperative financial sector.
The Parliament in Taiwan has recently passed the law and appropriated a budget of US$ 700 million or so, in order to better handle the possible future problems of the agricultural financial institutions. Besides, separation of the deposit insurance accounts of the banks and the agricultural financial institutions is one of the issues to be approved in the amendment of the Deposit Insurance Act in Taiwan. Thus, I believe the experience of OTIVA and its relation with NDIF is a valuable one to us.
As I just mentioned, now we have a better understanding about the Hungarian system. And in order to promote it, an article specifically introduces the economic and financial systems of Hungary will be published in the CDIC Quarterly Bulletin in June. I am glad that Mr. Nyers of the Hungarian Banking Association is present here today, and wish a closer and more frequent cooperation between the banking industries of our two countries.
Today, I am really pleased that I could formally represent CDIC to sign the MOU with NDIF's Managing Director Mr. Daniel Janossy, which symbolizes great strides of enhancing the partnership of the two organizations. In the future, the two sides will appoint official contact representatives to facilitate cooperation through information and personnel exchanges aimed at further promoting the development of the deposit insurance systems in Hungary and Taiwan.
In closing, I would like to thank Mr. Nyers of Hungarian Banking Association and Mr. Lee of Taipei Representative Office in Budapest, for sparing their precious time to join this meaningful event. I would also like to express my sincerest gratefulness to Mr. Janossy, Mr. Fekete-Gyor and staff of NDIF for their efforts on facilitating this important event, and wish you all the best of health and success. Thank you very much.