george bernard shaw said : “ they know the price of everything but the value of nothing! ” for in mauritius, in these forty years that we celebrate today, we have come to treasure not just the treasury bills, but also the non - traded assets of these islands. trust, probity, friendship, truth and beauty. let us cherish these values above all in the years ahead ; the natural and human assets of our homeland. so what is the agenda for the next forty years. who can say? it is tough to make predictions, especially about the future! much experience in forecasting suggests that its principal function is better to illuminate the known unknowns. as we establish more elaborate computer - based models for our planning we should perhaps test - run them through the 1967 data when we opened for business and see how far they would reveal the shape of things now. something for our research team to use as the litmus test for any new mathematical modelling kit! in recent years, the world of finance has encountered what taleb from the us, a professor of the science of uncertainty, denotes as the “ black swans ” of economic life, the unexpected eruptions which sharply deviate from the smooth transitions of the gaussian bell - shaped curve. we must be ready for the unexpected and nurture a capacity for resilience to withstand the future shocks and crises. ibm forty years ago was predicting little future for the pc, entrenched as they were in mainframe systems ; when “ big blue ” failed, bill gates was the beneficiary. in the us they used to consider the profession of accounting straight, if rather boring, and company accounts a fair presentation of the financial state of affairs. that is all being swept aside in the light of unexpected events, with the new tighter company regulatory systems ; adieu arthur anderson and the rest. that is the black swan bad news ; but a fairer wind blows : now goldman sachs is telling us that socially - responsible companies are out - performing the global stock index by a stunning 25 %. those companies, that have more concern for their ecological footprint, get a larger payoff and are increasingly attractive to investors. we should anticipate that here and, indeed, promote it to be ahead of the game. despite the future uncertainties, to say nothing of the uncertainties of futures, we are reshaping things here at the bank, by what might be called a little light re - engineering. supported by

meade ’ s seminal report was a shock from which we have mercifully recovered, more than once! but i suspect it was always intended to be a wake - up call, not a requiem. in his summary section, he declared : “ continuous and self - sustaining improvement in production and in the real standards of living can be achieved in mauritius only if over the next five years or so there is a relentless effort to introduce all those economic reforms which are essential to set this process of economic growth to work. “ if there is a secret to the continual forward impulsion of the country it is set in the foundations of the state itself and the capacity of its leaders and the sturdy fortitude of people of our country to want something better for their country and for their children. we have now so much we owe to the aspirations of our parents and the strength of our family life! in one of the formative policy documents which set the scene for independence, sessional paper no. 9 of 1966 8, we find the following context for our work : “ ministers of finance have their ears to the political ground ; a central bank should concern itself with the economic facts of life and above all should be “ in ” and “ of ” the financial and business community. ” tellingly, this paper refers to the central bank as the “ government ’ s bank ” and the “ bankers ’ bank ”. that was a key formula for the times, defining the role of the new bank - to - be in providing advice to government and to business on domestic monetary and economic matters. parliamentary paper in mauritius. i am the sixth governor of the bank of mauritius. it is a great honour to follow the lead of those five men before me. the life of a governor in this part of the world for those who are statistically - oriented is about 8 years, but with a large deviation, from the shortest 2 years to the longest 14 years. sir john shaw rennie 9, governor of mauritius, at the inauguration of the bank, and addressing its governor, remarked that his wife had drawn his attention to a dictionary definition of governor : “ an automatic attachment to an engine for controlling the speed, usually by regulating the supply of working fluid. ” happily not a phrase appearing on my job description! the first governor mr aunauth beejadhur 10, having just opened the shop for business on 14 august 1967, responding to the immediate challenges on his desk, had this to say at the official opening three weeks