r basant roi : indian ocean international bank ltd - opening of the on - going training programme keynote address by mr r basant roi, governor of the bank of mauritius, port louis, 8 march 2003. * * * chairman of the board of directors of the ioib staff members of the ioib ladies and gentlemen i am privileged to address you on the occasion of the opening of the first training programme for the staff of the indian ocean international bank ltd. your training programme is starting at a time when animated talks regarding the latest bank fraud have wrought up to a high pitch of concern. although i have been invited by your bank today to reflect on ethics in banking to mark the opening of your training programme, i shall attempt to highlight some cases of fraud from which we may all draw some lessons. philosophers in ancient as well as modern times have debated lengthily on ethics. aristotle and j. s. mill could not definitively sort out our ethical problems. it is unlikely that the business gurus of today can resolve the problems with a few well - constructed and captivating sentences. a commentator from the european media once stated that he found himself ill at ease to start a television programme ‘ with a lecture by currency manipulator george soros, of all people, on ethics ’. the commentator was quick in qualifying his remark with a statement to the effect that george soros had spent quite some millions of dollars made in speculating against the pound sterling in 1992 on charities. unethical ethics? ethical dilemma or what? i do not intend to dwell lengthily on such an overarching concept as ethics. we all have our own definition of ethics. the oxford english dictionary defines ethics as a set of moral principles. ethic is a singular word but is often used in plural. perhaps that is why its definition tends to be so elastic. it is, as you all must be knowing, not a mathematical concept and i, for one, would not venture here to give you any precise definition of what ethics in banking is all about. let me content myself with ethics in its simplest sense, that is, as one writer has put it, “ choosing the good over the bad, the right over the wrong, the fair over the unfair ”. and what is good, phaedrus, and what is not good need we ask anyone to tell us these things? ethical behaviour stems from within us, not from without. “ nothing external, … no guideline, no regulation

r basant roi : monetary policy objectives in mauritius and its operational framework since 1994 address by mr rameswurlall basant roi, gcsk, governor of the bank of mauritius, at the bank of mauritius ’ annual dinner with major economic stakeholders, flic - en - flac, 3 december 2004. * * * honourable chief justice distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen good evening i am pleased to welcome you all to the bank of mauritius annual dinner. in my last six addresses i dealt mostly with regulatory and supervisory issues that the business community and the public at large need to be aware of. the addresses are purported to enhance transparency in the bank ’ s policy decision - making. the theme for my address this evening is : a perspective of our monetary policy objective and the evolution of its operational framework since 1994 when our exchange control act was suspended. let me start with a remark - a remark that is generally valid. often, commentators make observations that are so framed, either unwittingly or intentionally, as to lend the impression that monetary policy, on its own, should be capable of achieving all economic objectives at the same time and all the time. this is indeed an unrealistic demand on monetary policy. monetary policy, though a very important arm of macro - economic policy, is only one of several elements in the economic panorama. we need to have a realistic appreciation of what monetary policy or any other policy in any other field can be reasonably expected to deliver. it ’ s a fact of life that we cannot have all that we want at the same time, all the time and under all circumstances. whether it ’ s monetary policy, fiscal policy or social policy, choices are made between conflicting or potentially conflicting objectives in the short term. between the choices made in the short term and the choices available in the long run there is what economists call the long run opportunity cost. policy choices made today do often constrain the range of choices available in the longer run. those of us outside the economics profession and even those in the economics profession frequently tend to overlook the long run opportunity cost when it suits them. whenever expectations of a particular sector are not met, there emerges pressing demand to intervene and set right sectoral problems while dismissing the long run adverse implications of the intervention for the economy as a whole. in any dynamic society with ever changing priorities, the relative importance of any single objective varies over time. a switch from one policy to another as demanded by particular economic sectors out of unreal