talks. it is essential for all countries to see the common interest in reducing trade barriers, and to work multilaterally through the wto to accomplish this. large emerging - market economies need to play their part. but so does the g - 7. this means we need to be willing to talk seriously about agricultural issues. i know that, politically, this is a hard sell here in the heartland of america, as it is in many parts of canada. but the global economy needs leadership in order to restart these talks, bring them to a successful conclusion, and reduce the threat of protectionism. let me now turn to the imf. it has become quite common these days to question the relevance of this institution. some people say that the imf should be scrapped, because countries now have ready access to private capital flows in global markets and no longer need to borrow from the fund. indeed, those countries that have imf loans are scrambling to repay them as quickly as possible. but this viewpoint ignores the fund's original mandate to promote international monetary co - operation by providing the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems. the question then becomes, how can the imf best fulfill this role today? i would argue that, given the fund's structure, its worldwide perspective, and its considerable expertise, there are important ways for the fund to do this. it can improve its surveillance function and, in doing so, it can more effectively engage the national authorities of all countries. what do i mean by " improving surveillance? " to answer that question, it's best to have some context. in earlier decades, the fund would have a dialogue with individual member countries about whether that country was following policies consistent with a fixed exchange rate regime and, under certain circumstances, the appropriateness of the fixed rate itself. but following the collapse of the bretton woods system in the early 1970s, surveillance naturally moved away from a narrow focus on exchange rates. for countries that were borrowers – or potential borrowers – from the fund, discussion focused mainly on the conditions that a country would need to meet in order to access imf funding. it certainly had little to do with the policies needed to enhance stability and to facilitate domestic and global adjustment. it is clear that today there is a need to refocus surveillance on policies that enhance domestic economic stability, and thereby, support global stability. surveillance should be confined to a country's exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, and financial policies,

one basic reason : the prime concern of any regulator is not to close a bank for the wrong reason but to save an ailing bank from collapsing. the regulator ’ s challenge is to turn an ailing bank into a really good and performing bank. in this challenge the board of directors of the ioib and the sbi team have played an instrumental - indeed a decisiverole. non - performing loans in the books of banks are an animal that the bank of mauritius has been combating since july 1999. one of the many reasons that motivated the bank to combat this animal in the balance sheets of banks is the need to prevent lending rates of banks from rising inordinately. you will appreciate that the bigger is this animal in the books of banks the higher the lending rates. good and productive borrowers pay for bad borrowers. and lending rates have never been generous in mauritius. you may wish to note that in 1999 housing loans made by banks carried an interest rate of between 14 and 15 per cent. today such loans carry interest rates that are below 10 per cent. i suspect the reduction in the size of non - performing loans in the books of most banks has had some positive impact on the level of lending rates. hopefully with the reduction of non - performing loans on an industrywide basis would eventually help bring down lending rates in mauritius thereby alleviating interest cost burden to the real sector of the economy. prospects for improving loans quality are bright more so when there are 900 to 1000 queries per day by banks at the mauritius credit information bureau. only yesterday i was given to understand that a habitual delinquent borrower had applied for additional credit facilities from a bank. rather than obtaining an additional credit facility, the delinquent borrower was made to repay a large chunk of his debt – thanks to information culled from the mauritius credit information bureau. i am confident that the ioib along with all the other banks operating in the country would successfully bring down the level of nonperforming loans thereby creating scope for bringing down lending rates to realistic levels. the ioib, in particular, has made important strides in this area. may i wish the board of directors, the management and the staff of the bank the very best of success in their new endeavour.