harvesh seegolam : current economic conditions and outlook statement by mr harvesh seegolam, governor of the bank of mauritius, at the post monetary policy committee ( mpc ) press conference, port louis, 20 september 2024. * * * international economic developments global growth continues to be resilient. in its july 2024 world economic outlook ( weo ) update, the imf projected global growth to remain stable at 3. 2 per cent in 2024 and 3. 3 per cent in 2025. growth performances across key advanced economies were encouraging in 2024q2. the us economy grew faster than expected on the back of solid gains in consumer spending and business investment. the euro area was well on a recovery track in 2024q2, helped by robust services activity and higher consumer spending. the uk economy also remained buoyant, owing to stronger government expenditure and household consumption. leading economic indicators pointed towards sustained expansion in economic activity during 2024q3, with the j. p. morgan global composite output index rising to 52. 8 in august 2024. this was mainly supported by positive performance in the services sector on account of rising new order intakes and improved new export business. global inflation remains on a downtrend, gradually converging towards major central banks'respective targets. this reflected largely favourable global commodity price developments and the effect of past monetary policy tightening. since the last mpc meeting, global food prices have declined, while the freightos baltic global index, a measure of freight costs, showed some signs of stabilisation. oil prices exhibited some volatility, moving in line with the decision of opec + production cuts and economic concerns. the imf, in its july 2024 weo update, forecast global inflation to fall from 6. 7 per cent in 2023 to 5. 9 per cent in 2024 and further to 4. 4 per cent in 2025. in view of these favourable outturns, interest rate cuts from major central banks are well underway. since the last mpc meeting, 47 decisions of monetary policy committee meetings globally have been to maintain the status quo, 44 decisions were about cutting rates as opposed to 5 decisions to raise rates. the us fed and the european central bank have lowered their respective policy rates by 50 basis points and 25 basis points at their september 2024 meetings. the us fed will be convening two more meetings till the end of this year, and the

enforced. i had asked for an amendment in the banking legislation to empower the bank to require every financial institution to make a statement of account available to the guarantor of any credit facility. the law was amended in december 2012. accordingly, we issued the guideline on disclosure of information to guarantors to the industry for consultation in september 2013, and it became effective in january 2014. the guideline provides guidance to financial institutions, setting out the framework, and prescribing the instances, for issuing statements of accounts in written or electronic form to guarantors of credit facilities. ( more on this issue ) 44. future of banking. rapid developments in the banking and payments technology landscape, combined with increasing competition for banking business, are fuelling a drive for more efficient, automated, and reliable delivery platforms and information systems. the year 2013 saw a number of domestic financial institutions upgrading their it systems to reap bis central bankers ’ speeches efficiency gains, enhance their capacity to grow their business, cater for new products, and offer better service to their customers. enabling technology allows banks to move closer to their customers, while gradually shifting from the conventional “ brick and mortar ” branchbanking model to adapt to the needs of customers on the look - out for faster, 24 / 7, on - thespot access to banking services. we are fast moving towards a cash - lite society, with consumers accessing banking services through the internet and mobile phones. the entry of mobile financial service providers in the low - value payments space has brought some muchneeded competition, to the benefit of customers. to meet these challenges, we have been adapting our regulatory framework to cater for electronic delivery of banking services. we introduced the guideline on mobile banking and payment systems in february 2013 to complement the guideline on internet banking which we had issued in 2001. ( more on the issue ) 45. the bank ’ s monitoring and surveillance functions require it to obtain and analyse a large volume of data from banks and other regulated financial institutions. we are concerned by the rising reporting burden on banks and run the risk of suffering from data overload at our end. we are now embarking on a landmark project to automate dataflow from financial institutions, set up a data warehouse, and introduce business intelligence tools for users. the project will radically improve the entire system of data management at the bank as well as reduce the reporting burden on financial institutions. the technology envisaged for the transmission of information,