It is with great pleasure to formally welcome all of you to the 7th ASEAN Insurance Congress, "the perfect venue for the young insurance leaders" from all parts of Asia and other neighbouring countries to convene and discuss issues pertaining to the insurance industry.

With the primary intention of establishing a broader regional perspective, this Congress aims to foster a stronger integration of international standards and best practices among ASEAN Insurance community members and serve as an avenue of exchange ideas and opinions with other insurance practitioners.

As you may know, the insurance industry is a picture of dynamism, changes, and progress.  It is an industry where the link to the past practices merges with the development for the future. In fact, when year 2008 resulted to a highly challenging environment brought about by the turmoil in the financial market, I am delighted at how Asian insurance companies remained resilient to such major change and smartly managed to emerge with re-engineered strategies.

We now live in an even more challenging times. This is so because we will still deal with the lingering after-effects of the global financial crises. But we are fortunate here in Asia because the challenges are more manageable than the other parts of the world.  Although Asia accounts for a relatively small share of worldwide premiums, I am confident that ASEAN insurance shows rapid growth and will continue to do so in the coming years.

Let us thus bring this growth to its full potential. Take advantage of the 7^th ASEAN Insurance Congress as it unveils insurance knowledge to boost bottomline.  This is a perfect opportunity for ASEAN insurance. This congress opens the door to a lot of opportunities where everybody will be supporting everyone. Learn the latest strategies from the industry leaders and understand the current and future of the insurance business straight from the experts.

This is a venue to build better infrastructure and eventually make the ASEAN insurance industry a new giant in the financial industry. 

Thank you and welcome to everyone!

MELVIN J ESTEBAN