rundheersing bheenick : positive developments in mauritius against the background of the financial crisis address by mr rundheersing bheenick, governor of the bank of mauritius, at the annual dinner in honour of economic operators, port louis, 5 december 2009. * * * i am delighted to welcome you all to the annual dinner in honour of our principal economic operators, to celebrate a year of fruitful collaboration and to reflect on the critical elements for sustaining this effective partnership. we are delighted that his excellency tito mboweni has accepted our invitation to be our special guest tonight. the great tito was until recently governor of the south african reserve bank and is now a committed fisherman. well may i say he is a great catch for us tonight. i first met tito mboweni as governor designate in davos in the margins of a world economic forum meeting in february 1999, when i had the honour to accompany my prime minister as a minister in his cabinet. i have gained much from this illustrious man who shared with me glimpses of his vast and rich career. i must confess that my first meeting with him as governor was even more memorable. it happened in washington during the imf / world bank annual meetings in october 2007. it was as close to a telling - off as a governor ever gets from another governor : “ my brother governor from mauritius ”, tito said drily, “ i understand you have been on the job for nearly a year now … but you haven ’ t found the time to pay us a visit or to take an interest in our work in sadc ”. i was cut to the quick by this stinging remark, especially as i had actually played a key role in getting mauritius to join sadc in the first place. i am a quick learner and i learnt my lesson. governor, you will be pleased to know that i currently luxuriate under the additional title of chairman of the comesa committee of central bank governors. and i had the singular honour to chair the commonwealth meeting of central bank governors in cyprus and report on our work to the plenary meeting of commonwealth finance ministers. indeed, some claim i have learnt my lesson too well! some complain that i have taken the regional and international dimensions of the job so much to heart that i am hardly ever here. now as governor mboweni steps from the limelight and has plans to pursue his great love of fishing, i invite him to elect mauritius as his second home, so that

is likely to become accepted as a new standard soon. thus, the bank missed a golden opportunity to be a pace - setter in this area in the emerging world. another regret is our failure as the main provider of data on banking, finance and international trade to the imf to graduate to the imf ’ s special data dissemination standards. had other key players in the sector shared our vision, we would have ranked with malta and cyprus, both of which joined the league of sdds countries last week. all is not lost, though, as we are working hard to join this higher reporting standard so that we can rank among the best. punching above one ’ s weight has always been a key driver for many of my actions. this is done more easily if the entire team shares the same mind - set and is prepared to leave their comfort zone to reach ever higher and higher. hilary clinton, the us secretary of state, has been lavishing praise on our government as an economic and moral leader in africa. the world bank has given our economy a clean bill of health. the imf is holding what it calls our “ hybrid system of inflation targeting ” as a model for other countries to emulate. and, for good measure, the fund has re - classified our exchange rate regime as “ free floating ”, going up one notch above “ managed floating. ” we do not have the vaulting ambition to aim for the next level, which is that of a reserve currency! to a troubled world we seem to have offered some fresh tuition. yet we should beware of hubris. so let us be warned by h g wells, one of the founding fathers of that fine institution, lse – much beloved of our minister of finance, and my daughter – who asserted over 100 years ago : “ human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe ”. thus we must learn from the current troubles, shrewdly building on our evidence - based approach to business, banking and finance. the world economic forum index may put us top of the african league on probity, but we still come low on the global list ; hilary likes our form of democracy, but the privy council has probed some of our political election practices and found some of our customs wanting. we may be getting along in economic growth ; but what about the degradation of our natural environment and the effectiveness of our response to the risks of climate change and sea level rise? our lodestar must be the