is doomed. at the workplace you always have to innovate, to move to new standards of perfection and to abide by new rules. you need the right attitude, the knowledge and skills to react in an optimal manner to situations that may come your way. you will some day leave the portals of the university of technology, mauritius, to start your career. from then on, you will be exposed to a very different world from what you may have known within the boundaries of university education : a world of fierce competition, filled with all types of risks. my advice is to let yourselves be guided by the very basic principles of social and professional lives – self - respect and honesty. apart from the good educational background you may have acquired, you will continue building self - respect by persevering to learn and innovate throughout your career. if you wish to succeed, make perseverance your bosom friend. this is a character that will make a difference. i enjoin a quote from george bernard shaw “ i am not a teacher, only a fellow traveller of whom you asked the way. i pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as of you ”. persevere and invent your own future. i wish you the very best of success. the bank of mauritius is ready to support this kind of initiative aiming at creating awareness of what is happening in the financial sector, especially the banking sector. i believe that the central bank can play an important role and be a bridge between the financial sector and your newly born society. i direct you to the website of the bank of mauritius where you will be exposed to loads of information on the financial industry and the way it is regulated and supervised. thank you.

/ 2 percent. it then accelerated to a rate of about 3 percent during the first half of this decade despite a recession, the fall of the dot - com market, a broad stock market correction, terrorism, and corporate governance scandals. however, in the early part of 2006, productivity growth slowed markedly, and it has increased at less than a 1 percent rate over the past four quarters. the recent deceleration raises the possibility that the trend has slowed significantly. if the trend has slowed, that could have important implications for the conduct of monetary policy. but the deceleration also could reflect, at least in part, cyclical dynamics in response to a slowing economy. indeed, estimates of trend productivity from a variety of outside forecasters, which generally range from 2 percent to 2 - 3 / 4 percent, point to the possibility that much of the recent weakness will prove transitory. of course, the middle of this range would suggest a modest slowdown from the consensus estimate from a year or so ago, which was around 2 - 1 / 2 percent. in any event, the possibility of a slowing in trend productivity is a risk to the outlook that i will continue to monitor. another potential influence on inflation is the degree of pressure on resources. 1 in the labor market, the unemployment rate declined over the course of 2006 from about 5 percent to 4 - 1 / 2 percent, and so far this year it has remained close to that level. reflecting the tightening of the labor market as well as the pressure on top - line inflation from increases in energy prices in recent years, the rate of increase in hourly compensation, although volatile, appears to be moving up. but the markup of prices over unit labor costs is still high by longer - run standards, and the wide margin implies that firms have the capacity to absorb increases in unit labor costs, at least for a while. as for price inflation, over the twelve months ending in april, the consumer price index excluding food and energy was up 2. 3 percent, the same increase as in the preceding twelve months. inflation as measured by the price index for personal consumption expenditures excluding food and energy rose 2. 1 percent over the twelve months ending in march ( the latest available data ). the most recent consensus forecast for total cpi inflation ( on a fourth - quarter to fourth - quarter basis ) is 3. 0 percent in 2007 and 2. 4 percent in 2008. 2 the anticipated moderation in inflation apparently reflects the expectation that the impetus from