it can, with great assistance bis central bankers ’ speeches from locals and our foreign friends alike. the assistance coming through is unprecedented and the resilience of our people is without question, but we must continue to all work together to quickly rebuild our nation. official launch ladies and gentlemen, i reiterate that it is a pleasure to be with you this evening to celebrate with merchant finance limited. i congratulate the board, management and staff on this evening ’ s event. without further ado, i have much pleasure in officially launching the company ’ s new name “ merchant finance limited ” and its four new trade finance products : • trade finance local ; • trade finance import ; • trade finance export ; and • agri trade finance. i wish merchant finance limited every success for the future. vinaka vakalevu and have an enjoyable evening. bis central bankers ’ speeches

auditors have advised us that under this new accounting classification, we do not have to take the unrealized losses to the profit and loss statement of the bank. very recently, we therefore decided to liquidate all of our bond holdings. we will then reclassify the new bonds that we are going to buy under the new classification. this example shows some of the issues around reserve management and the allocation of assets. as i have said, we have a benchmark which is anchored on the maintenance of value of our foreign reserves. we have liquidity guidelines. the question that is normally posed is : what about return? this becomes more critical when reserves are falling as what is happening in fiji now. the temptation is perhaps to abandon your benchmark in search for higher return. to me this is a dangerous road to take. you may end up in a win - win situation. but you may also end up in a loose - loose situation too! my risk - averse nature as a central banker compels me to keep to our benchmark and protect values then look for return in the better allocation of assets. this workshop addresses many of these asset allocation issues and i am certain will add value to how we manage our foreign reserves. the contents of your workshop are relevant and interesting. i know that you will have an interesting 5 days. we may have different levels when it comes to reserve management methods and capacities. therefore, please freely share your country experience during the course of the workshop and in the case studies. i find that this sharing is one of the best parts of what we take home after such workshop. and please keep your network intact after the workshop so you may be able to help your colleagues in some way. there is also the related issue of how important is the central bank ’ s profits. reserve management is the major source of our revenue. while we predominantly spend this revenue on the important role of monetary policy and financial stability, i am of the view that we cannot totally ignore the strength of our balance sheets. not so much from the point of view of funding the government budget, but more so from the confidence that a strong balance sheet gives to the financial system. conclusion i wish you all a fruitful week of discussions and deliberations. please also take some time away from your workshop to enjoy suva. once again, i thank the imf, the resource persons and the organizers for putting together this workshop. official opening i have much pleasure in declaring this workshop