ANZ's outgoing chair John Morschel took a swipe at the Federal Government over its foreign investment policy at the bank's annual meeting in Brisbane yesterday."With Australia facing many economic challenges, we have to have a more thoughtful and a more consistent national conversation about foreign investment," he said.In what must be a reference to the recent decision to turn down the takeover of Graincorp by US agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, Morschel said: "When we turn away foreign intellectual and financial capital, we turn away opportunity."Morschel linked issues in foreign investment policy to ANZ's "super-regional strategy [which] is seeing us extend support to a now large and diverse Australian population, as well as the new wave of Asian students, migrants and investors who are contributing to the Australia of the 21st century.""These linkages highlight how Asia's contribution to Australia and New Zealand is much more than being an export destination - it is a source of intellectual capital and new energy that we need to grow our economies," he said."Increasingly, Asia is also the source of the financial capital that we need to bring innovations to our market; innovations that boost productivity, economic growth and jobs."Morschel and his chief executive, Mike Smith, took an optimistic view of the bank's outlook for the year ahead, thanks to their strategy and productivity gains."After five years of turbulence, following the global financial crisis, the economic outlook is now more settled, with the global economy growing at a moderate although uneven pace," Morschel said."In Australia, the slowdown in mining investment is being gradually replaced by the non-resource sectors. This is being helped by a lower dollar and supportive monetary policy. In New Zealand, the outlook is increasingly positive.""In short, ANZ is in the right place at the right time."Mike Smith said: "[We are] now at a more mature stage of our operations and technology strategy, and we are really beginning to realise the benefits of the investments that we have made in previous years.""Notably, in 2013, we absorbed business volume increases of up to 12 per cent, while actually reducing operational expenses by 10 per cent."I believe ANZ's performance in 2013 shows we are building a bank that is growing faster and is of higher quality, and is, therefore, more predictable for shareholders."ANZ has set two targets for the next three years. These are to reduce the cost-to-income ratio by a further two percentage points by the end of 2016, and to achieve a return on equity of above 16 per cent over the same period.