rundheersing bheenick : fostering africa ’ s growth in the new reality – from vision to action address by mr rundheersing bheenick, governor of the bank of mauritius, at the opening plenary of the swift africa regional conference, balaclava, 30 may 2011. * * * it is a pleasure to be here this morning and to address you at the opening plenary of the swift africa regional conference. let me add my own words of welcome to the foreign delegates, especially those visiting our country for the first time. i have no doubt that you will be joining the ranks of satisfied repeat visitors as you discover for yourself how right one of our earliest publicists was when he claimed boldly that heaven was copied after mauritius. the name of the publicist? a certain mark twain. he may have been exaggerating – but just a wee bit! i thank swift for giving me the opportunity to share with you some thoughts on the theme of “ fostering africa ’ s growth in the new reality – from vision to action ”. i shall focus on the need to strengthen financial market infrastructure ( fmi ) in our region. fmis play a key role in promoting financial stability and economic growth. when financial markets get the jitters, the world economy grinds to a halt, as we have just painfully re - learnt. it is difficult to think of a more appropriate topic for a gathering such as this at a time when we have all become acutely aware of the importance of strong financial markets for economic prosperity. it is true that much progress has been made in strengthening fmi in africa ; it is equally true that much remains to be done as african financial systems are still lagging behind and are weakly integrated with the global financial system. as policymakers in advanced economies direct their efforts towards global reforms for a more robust global financial system, it may be a suitable time for some fmi initiatives in the african region. first, let me briefly recapitulate the scope of swift ’ s activities and operations in the global fmi, just to give the uninitiated some idea of its systemic importance and explain why regulators take such a close interest in swift. a few metrics will suffice to give you an indication of the criticality of swift to the operation, safety and soundness of the global financial system. since it was set up in the mid - 1970 ’ s, swift has rapidly become an indispensable element of

here. we do not want to compromise the export sector, and that is why our stimulus package contains a large element of burden - sharing between government, commercial banks and the operators themselves based on a viable, sustainable business model. * aren ’ t we throwing good public money after bad money just to save a few industries? we could have been accused of doing that if we had not put not extra conditions in place to be able to access public money. i must add that the central bank is actually participating in the working committee because we need to make sure that our economic operators who can survive the crisis are not driven into bankruptcy because of cash flow problems arising from temporary export difficulties. we know the world economy is going to recover ; the western consumer is going to start consuming again, and we want to make sure that our exporters are there with the right products at the right price when that happens. it is a transitional device, a shared burden. we are not providing public money free, it is not a grant. we are either taking over assets of the private sector, asking them to inject new capital and asking their own regular commercial bankers to provide some money as well. so this is very much a shared responsibility. one should expect no less from a responsible, caring, and concerned government, acting as a good paterfamilias. * private sector spokespersons are saying that you can ’ t save jobs and industries at the same time. are these two considerations mutually exclusive? i would not wish to get involved in a narrow sectoral squabble ; a two - cornered fight between le patronat and the trade unions, or a classic tri - partite debate. i understand the concern with lightening their wage bill which i suspect is what this argument is all about. for the country ’ s interest, we must make sure that once the crisis is behind us, mauritius is in a position to pay its way internationally. to do that, we need to have exporters and investors and workers. our exporters must be able to export at internationally competitive prices. now if to be internationally competitive, they have to get rid of some of their labour, that is a business decision that the exporter must take. it ’ s not possible for us, at our level, to say to exporters that they must get rid of x % or y % of their staff. exporters must themselves decide what kind of staff and productivity level they require just as they decide what export markets to