With the easing global financial crisis, President Arroyo Friday pushed anew for regulatory reforms in the world financial sector to prevent the credit crunch from happening again.

The President, in the forum of the Asian Bankers Association in Makati City, said the improving fiscal health of the region was a "good setting" to implement a new global financial regulatory regime that will be "more responsive to the needs of the 21st century."

"I am glad to see that capital is returning to the region. This is a good setting in which to ask not only what's ahead for Asian banking but to influence what's ahead for Asian banking. This is a good setting in which to step up formation of a new global financial regulatory regime that can accommodate the new scope and complexities of the world's financial transactions today," she said in her speech.

The President said she is confident Asian banking community, which made successful efforts to contain the economic meltdown, will be "catalyst" in the gathering groundswell for the reforms of banking system of Asia and the world.

More than a year after a US investment bank filed for bankruptcy that exacerbated a crisis that led to billions of dollar rescue for the global financial system, the President said economic crisis still grips much of the world complicated by natural disasters that have left a tragic scar particularly in Asia.

She said the man-made economic crisis, that left many countries in financial disarray, was a result of "poor judgment" of some global financial citizens. Even increasing national disasters are blamed due to manmade global warming, she added.

"If men and women make these problems, then men and women must solve them too and at no time has the need for greater cooperation been demanded of the international community than now," she said.

The President said the region has also started to recover from the financial crisis, citing the strong and healthy banking sector. The banks in Asia, she pointed, are free from toxic assets and did not need any bailout money from governments.

"The region is well positioned to accelerate its growing share of the global economy once the storm clouds of this crisis have abated," she said.

High performing economies of China and India as well as the Philippines and other emerging markets, with high consumption levels, will continue to be the region's "outperformers," according to the President.