for consent and approval for the display of mcb ’ s highly valuable artefacts. mr christopher murray, ceo, of hsbc ( mauritius ) ltd also kindly agreed to offer precious rarities for display in the museum. without their invaluable contributions, the museum would have been far less telling of our history. thank you, mr pierre guy noel. thank you mr christopher murray. we have a very long relationship with both the royal mint and de la rue. may i extend my warm thanks to royal mint and de la rue for having agreed to display in the museum a number of highly valuable items. we have in our midst messrs owen griffiths, ms marina carter and mr jean - marie huron. in 2015, i met with mr owen griffiths and we agreed on the publication of a book that bears the title, “ from piastres to polymer ”. it ’ s a comprehensively researched work on the history of banknotes of mauritius. the book is under print and before this year is out, we will have the pleasure of reading it with enthusiasm. i thank the honourable madam speaker of the national assembly for having granted the permission to re - print the 1966 sessional paper on the bank of mauritius. i also thank the prime minister ’ s office for having granted the permission to use the updated coates of arms of mauritius on the cover of the sessional paper. i thank the honourable prime minister for having so kindly accepted to grace the inaugural ceremony of the bank of mauritius museum. on behalf of the board of directors of the bank, myself included, i wish to thank you all for your presence. thank you.

. for monetary policy to be effective, especially in a world of changing economic structures and heightened uncertainty, it is essential that the central bank has a well - defined objective and that it expresses clearly and unambiguously its commitment to do everything that is needed to achieve that objective. yet by itself this may still not be sufficient, as this commitment must also be perceived as credible by all the actors affected by the decisions of the central bank. i think that almost eight years since the introduction of the single european currency, it is fair to say that the ecb has been successful in demonstrating this type of credible commitment. for this success, it was instrumental that the ecb decided early on to adopt and announce a quantitative definition of price stability, namely to keep hicp inflation below but close to 2 % over the medium term, as a clear yardstick which serves two purposes. on one hand, it clarifies and quantifies the notion of price stability, as mentioned in the maastricht treaty, which, therefore, represents the benchmark to assess our performance over the medium term. on the other hand, the quantitative definition of the price stability objective guides and helps to anchor private sector expectations of future inflation rates to a clearly defined objective. the commitment to pursue a publicly announced explicit price stability objective is important for a successful monetary policy. however, it is not on its own sufficient. it will lead to the appropriate anchoring of expectations only if policy is implemented in a credible manner, that is, in such a way that markets and the public are convinced of the central bank ’ s commitment and ability to conduct policy effectively. in other words, ex ante commitment must be confirmed ex post. this requires the central bank to respond in a timely and determined manner to shocks to price stability, and to effectively communicate its policy actions, so that markets and the public understand the rationale behind these actions and their consistency with the objectives and the strategy adopted. in an environment of increased uncertainty and structural change, the potential for making mistakes increases. an undesirable, and possibly substantial, decoupling of inflation expectations from the central bank ’ s objective can occur if the policy response to inflation is not sufficiently determined – or is perceived not to be. if inflation expectations were to become “ unanchored ”, a much tighter monetary policy would have to be pursued to secure price stability, and high inflation is likely to be accompanied by an economic slowdown or recession. these arguments are supported