, which will lead to further improvement in credit quality. • the bank entered into a memorandum of understanding with the central statistics office ( cso ), to provide for a more structured collaboration between the two institutions. this was preceded by a weekend brainstorming session between the bank, mofee, and the cso. • we give in this report for the first time some metrics which will allow the informed observer to gauge our efficiency in meeting our mandate at least cost. it will be seen that an entire working month ( 23 meetings against a statutory minimum of 12 ) was taken up with board meetings and the dividing line between governance and management became increasingly blurred – which would no doubt make an interesting case - study for institutions like the bis, the central bank of central banks, concerned with central bank governance issues. • the bank launched a commemorative gold coin to mark the 40th anniversary of the independence of mauritius. the coin has been the fastest - selling coin in the history of the bank, with the issue being sold out in less than five days. this feat has inspired us to come up with a “ father of the nation ” platinum series, made up of three different coins to be launched over the next three years, beginning in october 2009. in the previous year, we had already reached record levels in terms of training fellowships extended to our staff to widen the bank ’ s knowledge base. this year, we continued with this tradition with a total of 85 training opportunities provided to staff, or about the same level as the previous year. we intend to pursue in this direction to enhance our skill levels to enable us to meet new challenges. on behalf of the bank, i wish to extend my appreciation to our staff who have put in tremendous effort and hard work to allow the bank to fulfil its mandate. the close working relations with the industry were continued through different fora such as the banking committee, involving the mauritius bankers association ( mba ) and all chief executive officers of banks, the bureau meeting involving the mba and the management of the bank of mauritius, and various regular meetings at other levels such as those with treasurers and compliance officers. without this close collaboration, the transition to basel ii would not have proceeded as smoothly as it did. a special word of thanks therefore goes to the chairman, the chief executive and members of the mba for facilitating the task of the regulator. to conclude, let me thank the prime minister for his presence at the launch of the commemorative coin and his continued support during

smoothed out the weekly issues of treasury bills and provided an advance monthly issuance calendar to the market. the bank also introduced online auctioning of treasury bills on a pilot basis, thus paving the way for the issue of single - maturity instruments on different days and for greater efficiency in the money markets. • we revisited our portfolio management approach – which was designed for a context where our reserves were a fraction of their current level – in search of higher yield without sacrificing quality and without taking unnecessary risks. as i mentioned in my statement introducing the annual report of last year, we had separate peer reviews carried out by both the bank for international settlements ( bis ) and the reserves advisory and management program of the world bank ’ s sovereign investments partnership. both reports have now been received. • any change in our portfolio management strategy is tied up with changes in our accounting approach and the profit allocation framework as well as with the risk appetite that is now warranted in the circumstances. we envisaged changing our accounting approach to allow for dynamic provisioning of expected losses from “ negative carry ” resulting from forex sterilisation operations. our first attempt to do this was unfortunately aborted with the bank thus missing an opportunity to rank among the pioneers of this approach which has gained wide recognition after the crisis. the disallowed provision had to be remitted by way of a second transfer of profit during the year. • the bank hosted the 7th meeting of governors of the association of african central banks in july 2008 and, in that same month, co - hosted with the centre for central banking studies of the bank of england, a seminar on “ inflation targeting, modelling and forecasting ”. later on during the year, the bank co - hosted with the african export and import bank an event to publicise the latter ’ s products to the mauritian business community. • the bank has been appointed as the settlement bank for the comesa regional payment and settlement system ( repss ). the repss project is now under implementation. • since the imf announced that it was increasing the number of african regional technical assistance centers ( afritacs ), the bank joined mofee in lobbying for mauritius to be the venue for afritac ( south ). we expect to report on this in more detail in the next report. • the bank has extended the coverage of the mauritius credit information bureau to allow collection of credit information from all institutions, including leasing, insurance, hire purchase and utility companies