harvesh seegolam : keynote address - un country team strategic retreat keynote address by mr harvesh seegolam, governor of the bank of mauritius, at the un country team strategic retreat, balaclava, 4 april 2024. * * * the hon mr naadir hassan, minister of finance, national planning, and trade, republic of seychelles the hon mrs marie - celine zialor, minister for youth, sports, and family, republic of seychelles the hon mr justin valentin, minister of education, republic of seychelles the hon mr flavien joubert, minister of agriculture, environment and climate change, seychelles ms charlotte pierre, british high commissioner to mauritius mrs. lisa singh, united nations resident coordinator for mauritius and seychelles united nations regional directors united nations heads of agency members of the diplomatic corps in mauritius and seychelles distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen good morning. it is a pleasure to be with you today at the 2024 united nations country team strategic retreat. i would like to thank you for inviting me to share a few thoughts on the topic of sustainable development goal ( sdg ) financing among small island developing states ( sids ), a topic of utmost relevance and importance for us here in mauritius, as we chart the way forward in an increasingly unpredictable global economic context. ladies and gentlemen, over the next fifteen minutes, i will contextualise the macroeconomic issues that sids are subjected to, as these will form the basis of our discussions on scaling sdg financing. although sids are quite diverse, ranging from high - income to least developed countries, they share inherent structural vulnerabilities due to their small populations, geospatial remoteness, narrow resource base and susceptibility to climate change and natural catastrophes. the narrow resource base results in heavy reliance of sids on external markets for goods. as a result, many sids grapple with heavy fluctuations in import and export prices. in the current post pandemic context, these economic and financial vulnerabilities have been amplified even further by macroeconomic factors. these include global inflationary pressures, high fiscal deficits and public debt levels and capacity limitations that restrict the ability of sids to scale domestic resource mobilization, private finance and fdi opportunities towards sustainable development goals. further, the impact of climate change has added to the financial quagmire of many sids. 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches in fact, the pandemic had particularly

##igate further appreciation pressures on the exchange rate value of the rupee to avert the adverse potential impact of the worsening euro debt crisis on key sectors of the economy. i firmly believe that the real test of our management of exchange rate policy has emerged in the medium - term perspective over the five years for a short - run view can be very misleading, even if it makes good headlines in the media. 15. modernisation of the financial market infrastructure when i took over as governor in 2007, i discovered that the growing financial sector, in particular the offshore segment, and increasing cross - border transactions posed new and complex challenges to the existing payment system infrastructure. i realised that the financial market infrastructure needed a major overhaul to meet these demands. so the first decision that i took in this area was to replace the existing real - time gross settlement system – the mauritius automated clearing and settlement system ( macss ) – with another application that was built on a more resilient architecture and supported multi - currency transactions. the extended capability of the system has no doubt been a major contributing factor behind the appointment by comesa member - states of the bank of mauritius as the settlement bank for its regional payment and settlement system, whose operations we now host. we pursued our modernisation process with the implementation of the cheque truncation system, which provides for the bulk clearing of low - value electronic transactions. i set out, during my tenure, to extend the coverage of the mauritius credit information bureau ( mcib ) to all types of credit institutions operating in the economy. the mcib has over the years emerged as an essential risk management tool for banks in their lending activities. 16. over the past years, the card - based payment method has assumed growing importance in the economy and it is expected to make further inroads on cash and cheque - based settlement. the systemic importance of card transactions may pose a threat to the stability of the financial system if left unattended. in line with our mandate to ensure the stability and soundness of the financial system, i saw the need to revisit our erstwhile hands - off approach to this sector and move to regulate it properly. the bank will thus set up and operate a national payment switch ( nps ) by the end of the year. the nps is a national, multifaceted switching platform for various payment channels and it will settle the net positions of banks on the macss while reducing the cost of transactions and routing costs via the