 For almost 36 years, I've led the life of a police officer in another part of the world, in Europe, in my home country of Germany. And throughout my experience I've understood that a police officer in Singapore or in Germany or anywhere else has at least one thing in common with police officers worldwide be they from any place. This is a common enemy we all have, transnational crime, surpassing towns or cities, national borders or regions, regardless of the type of governance in place or procedures or agencies through which law is enforced. In pursuing our relentless and collective fight against this common enemy today, it is an honor to open my very first Interpol Regional Conference as U.S. Secretary-General. It is also my pleasure to be amongst colleagues from the Asian region, the land of phenomenal diversity, exponential growth and rising potential for leading the 21st century. For police cooperation to truly succeed worldwide, it also needs to be strengthened through all layers locally, nationally and regionally. Only then can a befitting response be formulated to combat transnational crime in every country and across every region. This is an age where individuals are crossing borders to be trained or to commit heinous crime in conflict zones and then traveling back home or to other conflict zones. They are not only crossing national borders, terrorism is seeing both intra- and inter-region flows of dangerous individuals. Skills in Modi-Operandi learned in any one region is being smoothly transferred to others. This dangerous flow is happening all too often, perhaps even right now. The fundamental question is, can police agencies afford to not share information with one another in this age? I think we all know the consequences. We have all seen it for ourselves around the globe, time and again. The year of 2015, since its beginning, has been no exception of witnessing acts of terrorism. And the Asian and South Pacific region is well-worsed in dealing with terrorism. Case in point is the increasing movement of individuals from East Asia to Syria and Iraq. This will be deliberated upon during the presentation later today. Let me go straight to speaking about action at a regional level. Action undertaken right here in the region of Southeast Asia just a few weeks ago with the support of police from nine participating countries in an Interpol operation. This operation, titled Sunbird, was coordinated out of Singapore and focused on countering terrorism under the Interpol Border Management Task Force Initiative. 15 operational spots through ports of land, sea and air were activated to conduct over 300,000 searches in Interpol's stolen and lost travel document database and an almost equal number in the Interpol database for nominals. And Interpol red notices were given special focus with the successes such as those based on five subjects of red notices provided by the Czech Republic. Two subjects were located in the Philippines. Tests against two subjects gave positive results in the Thai immigration system. And one subject was arrested in the Czech Republic. Moreover, over 100 names were provided as being potential subjects to future Interpol notices, both red and blue. Ladies and gentlemen, behind the scenes was active real-time support of coordinators from all national central bureaus in participating countries. They worked alongside a dedicated team of Interpol staff, a team that is ready to take on a bigger challenge soon. Some members of this team have been moved from Interpol's General Secretariat in Lyon and they excitedly await to be joined by seconded officers from this region to complete the team. I speak of officers that are ready to realize a challenge in exactly two weeks from now when Interpol's Command and Coordination Center Operations Room will go live and become operational right here in Singapore. Housed inside the Interpol Global Complex for Innovation, which I already mentioned that was inaugurated just 48 hours ago, the CCC Operations Room is here to deliver real-time support to you. It was also developed a dedicated disaster victims identification platform to assist Interpol member countries in the wake of natural disasters or lethal acts of crime alike. On-site support for assisting our NCPs in the region to maximize the use of Interpol tools will be readily available. It is here that I wish to stress something pertinent. I would like to make two requests to my fellow police officers in Interpol member countries from the Asia-South Pacific region. First we strongly encourage the increased use of Interpol's wide array of tools for our mutual benefit. This includes, at the very least, populating databases for information sharing with other police forces, issuing notices and diffusions to alert each other of individuals, Modi operandi or incidents, and seeking real-time support 24-7. And second, we must also extend Interpol support beyond the National Central Bureau's to the front lines. By this I mean active engagement with all national law enforcement agencies. If specialist units and local police personnel do not share information with their own NCPs and vice versa, a dangerous amount of police information is simply lost at a global level. Both these requests of using Interpol tools and engaging all law enforcement agencies transcend across fighting not just terrorism but all crime areas. They are equal, critical for police to fight trafficking in drugs, illicit goods, counterfeit pharmaceutical products or humans, from combating environmental crimes and counterfeiting of currencies to crimes of the digital area. Police worldwide simply must share and they must share with all law enforcement agencies. Ladies and gentlemen, nowhere is sharing of what police already knows more significant than in dealing with crimes in cyberspace. On this, much has been spoken recently and you are all well informed that the Interpol global complex for innovation, the IGCI, has a dedicated research and development center where work alongside the private sector and academia to identify multiple solutions such as those for curbing activity on the online black market is ongoing. However, I want to reiterate that IGCI has been created not only for providing support to tackle cybercriminality as the needs evolve. It serves for training and capacity building of police personnel which is a major component but the scope is far, far wider. All in all, we also hope that the increased onsite presence of Interpol in Asia will now be utilized by all police agencies in close proximity. Let's add Interpol's General Secretary in Lyon, France, all of its units and in fact all our offices worldwide continue to serve you in equal measure as they have in the past. I would also like to acknowledge the support you have lent to past efforts of Interpol's Liaison Office in Bangkok. I also wish to thank representatives from the UN office on drugs and crime. The Arab Interior Minister Council as well as the Corporation Council for the Arab States on the Gulf for their presence here today. Interpol envisages an even stronger relationship in the future with each of your organizations. To our colleagues from ASEANAPOL, I would like to say that we are extremely confident of the synergy that is developing with regional police organizations such as yours. This will truly help Interpol to build a network of networks around the globe connecting police officers beyond national central bureaus and through the regional and global levels. Behind serving the growing demands of police forces worldwide rests financial support that Interpol heavily relies on. For this reason, I thank the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Australia for their continued support of our activities. Your Excellency, before I conclude, I wish to express our sincere gratitude towards Singapore for hosting the 22nd Asian Regional Conference. We thank all our colleagues here for taking care of every detail in organizing this statutory meeting of the Interpol family and for your excellent hospitality. Your Excellency, I also take this opportunity to congratulate you on your recent appointment to your new position within the Singapore government. Ladies and gentlemen, in my vision statement leading to my election as Interpol Secretary General, I had mentioned how importantly I view having dialogue amongst ourselves and with our partners. This consultative process is rigorously applied to the initiative of Interpol 2020 on which we will have a dedicated session on the last day of the conference. I must thank those countries that gave us feedback at the recently held heads of NCP meeting in Leong. Your views are very much appreciated and we will speak on some analytical outcomes the day after tomorrow. I wish you a very successful conference ahead and for now I leave you with a quote from a famous personality from my home country Germany, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who once said, knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do. I believe when it comes to making the world safer, we simply cannot take chance. As police officers, we need to apply all we have and to do all we can. Thank you very much and I wish you a most successful conference. Thank you.