managers often face the extremely difficult task of identifying what one is best capable of doing. i have seen how an established system have often labelled people possessing enormous talent as “ losers ”. i find no better example than the beatles. no one had ever noticed that paul mccartney had any musical talent in his schooldays. in the 1950s, a schoolteacher in liverpool had half of the beatles in his class. the teacher missed it. my point here is that talent is often buried deep ; it ’ s not lying around on the surface. but one thing the beatles had that many individuals in mauritius don ’ t have it today – the sense of sacrifice, the strong commitment to a goal, hunger for success and recognition through perseverance. i regularly meet with ceos of enterprises in the country and i am given to understand that complacency is a phenomenon quite pervasive in the private sector and in the public sector as well. i am often told of people who have been in their position for years. they are good at what they have been doing. they are respected. they have a likeable boss and a job that brings them distinction in society. it ’ s great to be in that position. problem is that they feel too comfortable in the job and they get less vigilant. the urge for new learning evaporates and they eventually lose their edge. once someone goes to work simply in order to work rather than to improve oneself, one becomes invariably incompetent. as ceos, we often hear staff members saying, “ this cannot be done. and that cannot be done. this is an impossible task. that is an impossible task. ” mentally, the guys are pensioned off. in the world of athletics, the kenyans ’ refusal to discount anything as impossible is well illustrated in the game of ‘ catch the impala ’. the impala is a supremely fast animal. run after it. the impala will stop at some stage to rest. before you get too close, it starts running again. this stop - chase race can go on for about 40 kilometres. after that point, the impala is tired and one is able to pat it on the backside. to the kenyans, ‘ catch the impala ” is the ultimate test of perseverance. mike boit, a former olympic 800 meters winner, once said, “ when i returned home to kenya, they actually respected me more for my ability to catch the impala than

a consistent picture of a highly integrated unsecured money market is also painted by the indicators for the maturities longer than overnight. both the cross - country standard deviation of euribor lending rates among euro area countries for the one - month and for the 12 - month maturity stood even below one basis point shortly after the introduction of the euro and remained stable thereafter. this compares with the respective values in january 1998, i. e. one year before the start of monetary union, of more than 100 basis points for the one - month rates and of around 50 basis points for the 12 - month rates. the growing repo market is still somewhat less integrated than the unsecured segment, but integration is progressing. the creation of the eurepo index – the benchmark for secured money market transactions in the euro area – in 2002 was an important market initiative to further promote the integration of the repo market. our indicators for the integration of the repo market reveal that the euro area cross - country standard deviation of the one - month eurepo rates was around, and normally below, one basis point and today stands at around 0. 5 basis point. the indicator for the 12 - month eurepo rates shows larger movements, in part reflecting the lower liquidity of this market. still, with a standard deviation always below 2. 5 basis points, and today standing at around 1. 5 basis points, the indicators suggest that there is a relatively high degree of integration also in the euro area repo market. the major role of the euro in enhancing financial market integration is also visible in the interest rate derivatives markets. the total of euro interest rate otc derivatives contracts reaches a daily turnover of around eur 380 billion, thereby being larger than the us dollar segment, with a daily turnover of around eur 290 billion. 9 a particularly important part of this is the euro interest rate swap market, with a daily turnover of almost eur 250 billion. it is the largest interest rate swap market in the world, i. e. also larger than the equivalent us dollar segment that has a daily turnover of around eur 160 billion. 10 let me in this respect also highlight the success of the euro overnight index swap market, where contracts are exchanged in which one party pays a fixed rate of interest for the duration of the contract, while the other party pays an average of the overnight eonia rate realised over the period. the launch, conducted jointly by euribor fbe ( european banking